Warning over elderly care services

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In its annual report on the impact of public policy on older people, the charity branded as "dismal" the social care settlement in last year's Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR), which set out the Government's expenditure plans to 2011.

The 1% annual real-terms increase in funding for local government fell well short of the expected 4% increase in the cost of providing social care to an increasingly elderly population, said the report, entitled Age Agenda 2008.

Age Concern welcomed ministers' promise of £520 million over the next three years to modernise service delivery, along with a Green Paper on social care this year.

But the report said the failure of the CSR to address the problems of local authority social care budgets and social exclusion among older people indicated that the Government was "yet to fully grasp the nettle" of the UK's ageing population.

Age Concern director general Gordon Lishman said: "The Government set out an impressive vision for social care in 2007 - but the real test now is whether it can deliver it.

"Without sweeping changes, the system will limp on until it breaks completely, leaving millions of older people without the care they need to stay healthy and independent.

"Now is not the time for dithering about the unavoidable costs needed to care for our rapidly ageing society: decisive leadership is urgently needed."