Investing in adult social care

Some patients are unable to be discharged from hospital because councils do not have the funds or wherewithal to facilitate their care afterwards. The media reports that hospital corridors in emergency departments are filled with people nursed on trolleys or being cared for in ambulances, a result of not being able to transfer patients onwards. These scenarios, acted out across the country, are the result of a number of factors, not least the result of decades-old systemic problems that have never been addressed, putting people's lives in jeopardy.

The dire state of our NHS is reflected in the correspondingly dire state of our adult social care. A central issue that prevails is an increasingly ageing society and how little, if anything, has been done to prepare for it. There are massive holes in care provision, leading to patients who should be discharged from hospital left stranded there and patients who should be in hospital left stranded in ambulances or at home.