By Lucy Phillips | 2 June 2011
Councils need to speed up improvements to adult social care services to meet future demands, according to a report from the Audit Commission, published today.
The watchdog says that councils are taking steps to improve the efficiency of their adult social care services but the pace and scale of change needs to increase as budgetary and demographic pressures grow.
Its report, Improving value for money in adult social care, suggests nine areas where councils could improve services and make savings. They include better procurement, implementing care prevention measures, giving more people personal budgets, using community care rather than residential care and charging. While most local authorities have made improvements in a number of these areas, no council has made changes to all of them.
Andy McKeon, managing director of health at the Audit Commission, said: ‘The pressures on councils are growing. They have many competing demands on their finances and, over time, more and more people will need their help. Small, tried and tested improvements will help to make savings in the short term and there are opportunities to do this. But councils also need to look more widely to deliver greater savings and make a real difference to people’ lives in the longer term.’
According to the report, another opportunity for councils to make savings in the coming years will be to work more closely with the NHS. Joint commissioning or service delivery would cut duplication and avoid transferring costs from one organisation to another.
McKeon added: ‘Social care is undergoing a radical change and we cannot predict what the service will look like in years to come. But we do know that like all public services, savings will need to be found.’
The briefing is the first in a series from the Audit Commission looking at value for money in social care.
