Residents in East Renfrewshire could miss out on care services as “difficult” budget decisions are set to include “only providing support to those in greatest need”.
The area’s health and social care partnership [HSCP] is facing a funding shortfall which could be as high as £10m and jobs are likely to be lost — on a “voluntary basis as far as possible”.
Officials have revealed a “prioritisation” framework will need to be introduced. “This will mean that only those with the greatest level of need will receive services,” they reported.
READ MORE: East Renfrewshire garden waste price hike an 'unfair burden'
Council leader Owen O’Donnell, Labour, said it is a “grim reality” and more funding is needed from the Scottish Government to improve the situation.
Cllr Paul Edlin, Conservative, suggested introducing new charges for care to close the budget gap, but he was told it would be “counterintuitive”.
East Renfrewshire’s HSCP — directed by a joint board [IJB] with council and NHS members — delivers all local health and social services, for children, adults and older people.
In an update last week, IJB members were told the HSCP is facing “really significant pressures and our funding gap, I think, sadly could still be between £5m and £10m.
A finance official said talks are ongoing with the Scottish Government about the “extent of savings that this level of budget settlement would require”. The budget will be set in late March.
The HSCP is looking at “every single option available to us to mitigate the impact of the significant budget savings and the impact that will have on the people we provide services for, and also to our staff”.
But it faces “very difficult decisions”, the official said, which will mean “our focus will need to move away from a lot of the prevention and early intervention work that we have prided ourselves on”.
The IJB will also look at “what we can all do to minimise the impact on the collective workforce as well”.
Engagement events will be held with stakeholders, including carers, ahead of the budget meeting in March. However, the official warned there won’t be the “luxury” of choosing savings which are “probably more palatable than others”.
Cllr O’Donnell said East Renfrewshire has an ageing population — older people’s services is the biggest area of investment for the HSCP, with almost £40m spent in 2022/23.
“There is a big volume increase there and the complexity of needs is increasing as well,” he said. “That puts a disproportionate demand on East Renfrewshire compared to other councils whose age profile is a little bit less than us.”
The IJB is looking at cutting preventative care, however, budget documents stated the “longer term impact of moving away from a focus on prevention will lead to greater complexity of needs and demand in future years”.
“But our limited resources leave us no option,” the paper added.
Cllr O’Donnell said: “If you can get a small care package for someone, it might help prevent them getting to a much more severe position faster, because you’re monitoring them.
“You know what their needs are, rather than them coming to you when it’s already very complex.”
At the meeting last week, he said: “At the end of the day, the only solution is cash and we don’t have it. We need to draw attention to this and fight our corner as well as we can.
“My sense is this is the next bubbling budget crisis is the IJB funding and restriction of access to care.”
Cllr Paul Edlin, Conservative, asked whether the board could “think outside the box” and consider “finding a level of charging for services where people are not on social benefits”.
“We are in a difficult situation and perhaps thinking like that, rather than having people suffer, could make a difference,” he added.
“Our backs are against the walls, you can only cut services so far without the consumer suffering and there is going to be some kind of suffering in these kinds of cuts.”
An official said the board had agreed in September to “add inflationary uplifts” to existing charges for 2023/24 but “deliberately took the decision not to include any new charges”.
She said the Scottish Government wanted to “move away from charges for non-residential care” and new charges would be “absolutely counterintuitive to our priorities”.
Anne-Marie Monaghan, the IJB chair, said it would cost more to set up “than it would in anything we could generate” and recruiting more staff would be difficult.
She added: “There are also some moral issues around people with disabilities being the only marginalised group that have to pay to remove the barriers that prevent them from being fully included in life.”
READ NEXT:
Glasgow trading standards confiscate 13,000 illegal vapes in city-wide crackdown
Glasgow cyclist on M8 motorway in jeans and puffer jacket with Asda bag over handlebars
Glasgow probe into doctor accused of stealing and selling life-saving PPE during covid pandemic
The Admiral Bar regulars react to news of shock closure despite being 'successful and solvent'
Glasgow cycle lanes causing 'misery' for drivers as 2,000 sign petition to remove them
