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Clinical Negligence Solicitors

£5.3 million Better Care Fund fails to ease pressure on NHS (24 February 2017)

Date: 24/02/2017
Duncan Lewis, Clinical Negligence Solicitors, £5.3 million Better Care Fund fails to ease pressure on NHS

The influx of £5.3 million to the NHS in the form of a Better Care Fund has done little to ease the pressure, or save money, on the overrun Healthcare system according to the National Audit Office.

In its primary year the fund worked to invest in local services, joining up health and social care in order to keep more patients in the community. However statistics suggest that despite this investment the situation has worsened.

The number of delayed transfers of care cases, that is when patients are stuck in hospital because there is no suitable alternative care package available at home or in a care home, has increased by 185,000 despite targets for this number to fall by 106,000. The number of patients being admitted to A&E has also risen by 87,000.

The Department of Health is hoping to further integrate care services, it was hoped the Better Care Fund would save the government around £500 million by reducing the demand for expensive hospital care. However, James Taylor of the charity Scope commented that “over 400,000 working-age, disabled people rely on social care, but a chronic lack of funding has left many completely isolated, cut off from society, slipping into crises and ending up in A&E … the government’s ambition to create a country that works for everyone cannot be one that leaves thousands of disabled people without the basic level support they need to live an independent life”.

The National Audit Office noted that initiatives to integrate the care systems pose significant challenges and stress at the best of times, let alone when the system is at the brink of a crises, concluding that despite much effort “benefits have fallen far short of plans”.

President of the Royal College of Physicians, Prof Jane Dacre said:

“We should not take the slow progress so far as a signal to stop or reorganise the initiatives – it takes time to transform services and evaluate them to show benefit, so they should be allowed to continue, but with much more involvement from local authorities upfront in planning and implementation, and a funding boost for social care”.

Divya Anand, Clinical Negligence Solicitor at Duncan Lewis states:

“It is encouraging that there has been an influx of funds to help ease the pressures on our NHS but it is also quite disappointing to hear that this has been insufficient. The aim is to reduce the amount of admissions to the A&E department and to ensure that patients are able to rely on social care; some Local Councils have suggested that they need to increase the funds that they obtain through Council Tax by as much as 15% to meet the increased demands for social care– hopefully with time the initiatives to integrate the care systems will succeed and we will see a huge improvement.”

Divya Anand is a Clinical Negligence Solicitor at Duncan Lewis who has experience with handling multiple clinical negligence claims including cerebral palsy, gynaecological claims and orthopaedic injuries.

Duncan Lewis’ broad clinical negligence practice handles a vast array of claims, from accident and emergency failures to GP negligence claims, to misdiagnosed fractures to wrongful death matters. Duncan Lewis’ Clinical Negligence team has significant experience acting in claims for children and adults who have suffered profound and permanent brain, spinal or neurological injuries and associated disabilities as a consequence of failings in medical care in both NHS and private hospitals. They also act for clients in cases arising from obstetric, neo-natal, paediatric, anaesthetic, neurological, spinal, surgical, cardiac and emergency care and consequent disability resulting from these.


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