16 July 2004
Councils and health bodies need to ensure there are sufficient services to meet the future needs of Scotland's ageing population, an Audit Scotland report says.
Eight of the 32 unitary councils need to make greater effort on care for older people in their own homes and to ensure new policies such as free personal care and rapid response can be evaluated.
The eight councils are: Aberdeen City, East Dunbartonshire, City of Edinburgh, Eilean Siar (Western Isles), Renfrewshire, Shetland, South Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire.
The report, Commissioning community care services for older people, examines how councils plan, purchase and review services for older people. It also looks at the implementation of national policy by councils and their health partners. Annual spending on older people's services in Scotland is about £558m and accounts for almost two-thirds of councils' community care expenditure.
Accounts Commission chair Alastair MacNish said that, over the next 20 years, there would be a huge increase in the number of older people in Scotland and fewer young people to provide unpaid care for friends and relatives.
'Many councils are planning well and developing services for older people to cope with future need. However, some aspects of planning, including having good information about older people's needs, are not as developed as they should be in all councils,' he said.
The number of people aged 65 and over in Scotland is predicted to grow from 812,000 to 1.2 million in 20 years.
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