Prevention services are ‘at risk' because of rising social care spending, a local government leader has warned.
Giving evidence to a Health and Social Care Committee inquiry, chairman of the Local Government Association's community wellbeing board, David Fothergill, said the amount councils spent on prevention had fallen from 8.2% last year to 7% this year.
He told MPs: ‘Social care is really putting local government under a lot of pressure, which means that all the other services that we provide are becoming at risk and, most importantly, prevention. Prevention is something we all talk about but it gets less and less funding,'
President of the Association of Directors of Adult Services, Melanie Williams, said only half of her members were confident they could meet their prevention duties under the Care Act.
She added: ‘We are in a constant spiral of thinking about today and not thinking about what will be a brilliant wellbeing service that supported older people with loneliness, for example.'
Lee Peart is editor of Hemming Group’s Healthcare Management magazine.
