Age UK's response to CSA release 'Lack of social care is piling pressure on surgeries and A&Es'

Age UK has responded to the Care and Support Alliance press release about the lack of social care piling pressure on surgeries and A&Es.

Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director at Age UK said:

"There are a horrifying 1.2 million older people with an unmet need for help with essential tasks like getting out of bed and going to the toilet and because of their trusted role in local communities, GPs are uniquely well placed to see the dire impact on older people when there is insufficient good social care to go round.

"We also know that one of the consequences of the shortage in social care is older people coming into doctors' surgeries in a desperate search for social care support help, which with the best will in the world GPs and their teams are usually ill-equipped to provide."

"We hope that the Government will recognise the crisis in social care and commit to emergency funding in the upcoming Spring Budget to save the system from complete collapse. Action of this kind would also allow time for the Government to develop a longer term solution for the many problems bedevilling social care.

"Unless something changes soon we can only see GP surgeries, and indeed A and E departments too, being more and more clogged up with older people who ought to be receiving social care help but who are being left to struggle alone and so have nowhere else to turn."