Care England has called on the UK government to do more to ensure more £3.2bn of emergency funds for councils to help tackle the Covid-19 pandemic gets to the social care front line.
The government last month pledged the additional money to local authorities with part of the money earmarked for the “adult social care workforce and for services helping the most vulnerable.”
Care England, the representative body for independent providers of adult social care, said the money is not reaching the sector quickly enough.
“Many local authorities have not even contacted all their care providers let alone sought to reimburse Covid costs,” it said in a statement.
Care England called for a series of measures to be implemented, including more central government guidance to ensure that the support being offered by local authorities to care providers is less varied in nature; ensuring local government and CCGs receive the required levels of funding to meet the increasing costs being incurred by front line services from Covid-19; and central government to audit its public announcements to ensure that they are followed through.
The body also called for a 10% uplift to be made across the board to care providers to deal with Covid-19 costs.
“This is something which would overcome the inefficient and highly varied nature of those fees currently being offered to social care providers,” it said.
In addition, Care England demanded an end to the “unacceptable conditions presently being imposed upon social care providers, which in some cases actually create costs more that the support offered”.
“It has become clear that in such a crisis we need further direction from central government. There is a huge disconnect between policy announcements from the centre and delivery on the ground,” said chief executive Martin Green (pictured).
