Government's failure on carers truly shameful - Mulholland
October 13, 2009 10:28 PM
Recent research by two of the UK's leading carers' charities, The Princess Royal Trust for Carers and Cross Road Care, has exposed that as much as £40m of the £50m allocated by the Government for carers' support is not reaching the people for whom it was intended.
Greg Mulholland, Lib Dem Shadow Spokesperson for Health said:
"There was a lot of fanfare when this assistance was promised to carers and the Government seemed happy to bask in that glory. However it seems they were all too happy to forget carers, many of whom are in desperate need of assistance, as soon as the public interest waned.
"The government must have known when it promised the £50m that it could not deliver, which exposes this policy as shamefully cynical. If they couldn't deliver it they simply should not have promised it.
"When these types of funding problems are exposed ministers always duck responsibility by blaming the decisions on local NHS Trusts. This is yet more evidence of why we need locally elected health boards to make the NHS accountable to the people it serves."
ENDS
Notes to Editors
1. The Princess Royal Trust for Carers and Crossroads Care, have uncovered from FOIs that approximately £40m of the £50m allocated by the Government for carers support is failing to reach carers.
2. A Parliamentary Question on the funding package for carers, answered by the Department of Health last month, revealed that the funding was provided as part of PCT's general budgets and could have been spent elsewhere.
14 Sep 2009 : Column 2157W
Sir John Stanley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how much funding was allocated to each primary care trust from the £50 million provided for funding breaks for carers in 2009-10; [291048]
Mr. Mike O'Brien: The additional £150 million provided for funding breaks for carers was given to primary care trusts (PCTs) as part of their overall baseline allocations. The Department does not break down PCT revenue allocations by policies at either a national or local level and there is no weighted capitation formula specific to carers that would allow needs to be accurately identified at the local level. So it is therefore for PCTs to decide their priorities for investment locally, taking into account their local circumstances and local priorities.
3. In 2008, at the publication of the National Carers Strategy, Gordon Brown said: "Too often carers are unable to access the kind of support which allows them to re-charge and renew themselves, and to address this we are taking immediate action to double our support for respite care over the next two years with an additional £150 million of new funding." http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/documents/digitalasset/dh_085338.pdf
4. The Liberal Democrats would put local people in charge of decisions about their health services by replacing centrally appointed primary care trusts with directly elected Local Health Boards. Primary care trusts (PCTs) would be renamed Local Health Boards and the majority of board members would be elected. The board will also have members appointed from the health professions.
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