John McDonnell accused the chancellor of failing the sick and elderly after his autumn statement gave no additional money to the NHS or social care, despite warnings from the opposition party that both are at a tipping point.
The shadow chancellor said he feared a crisis in funding and care over this Christmas, after Hammond offered £23bn for infrastructure but no additional help for health services.
“Tonight, many elderly people will remain trapped in their homes, isolated, and lacking the care they need because of continuing cuts to funding,” McDonnell told the Commons in his response to the autumn statement. “You can’t cut social care without hitting the NHS …
“Across the country, hospitals are facing losing their A&Es, losing their maternity units, losing their specialist units. This Tory government is failing patients and failing dedicated NHS staff.
“It is the first time healthcare spending per head has declined since the NHS was created.”
Hammond mentioned the NHS in his autumn statement speech once to confirm the government’s commitment to spending an extra £10bn a year by the end of this parliament. There was no mention of social care and no additional money for either, despite warnings that shortages in funding are pushing hospitals to a tipping point.
In his response, McDonnell poured scorn on the small scale of measures to help families that are “just about managing” and highlighting a raft of struggling public services.
But it was Hammond’s failure to mention social care that caused the biggest response amongst Labour. Andy Burnham, the Labour former health secretary, said it was astonishing that Hammond could prioritise funding for new grammar schools over properly funding social care.
“Quite frankly, it is unbelievable that the chancellor could find no mention for social care today [after] six years of cuts of social care have left a record number of older people in hospital and the NHS on the brink,” he said.
Luciana Berger, the former shadow health minister, said there was mention in the 72-page autumn statement document that accompanied Hammond’s speech to the Commons of the words NHS, public health, social care, or mental health.
“The chancellor cannot ignore the fact our health and social care services are in crisis facing massive, massive deficits. Surely the many economists in his own department will have told him it is economically illiterate to ignore the massive decrease in people receiving social care in the community and the cuts to NHS and staff training. Why was the NHS missing from his autumn statement today?” she said.
Sarah Wollaston, the Conservative chair of the Commons health committee, said she wanted to get away with a divisive debate on social care and called for a cross-party consensus on solving the problem.
Wollaston also said she was “disappointed” that extra funding has not been brought forward at the autumn statement, although she welcomed the signals that this is now under consideration.
During the debate, Hammond criticised Labour MPs for being “fond of talking about cuts to social care budgets” when local councils, not central government, are in charge of managing their own funding.
“What we’ve done is created a ‘Better care fund’ that by the end of this parliament will be delivering a £.15bn a year into social care and allowed local authorities to raise a social care precept that by the end of this parliament will be delivering an extra £2bn a year,” he said.
“That is £3.5bn a year of additional funding into the system. What I would accept is there is an issue that local authorities are saying about the profiling, about how this large amount of money ramps up. It’s an issue we are aware of and are discussing with them.”
He later dismissed the idea that there was any “crisis or looming chaos”.
Izzi Seccombe, of the Local Government Association and Tory leader of Warwickshire county council was also critical. “Councils, care providers, charities and the NHS have all called on the government to use the autumn statement to properly fund adult social care,” she said.
“The government’s failure to act today means social care remains in crisis, councils and the NHS continue to be pushed to the financial brink and face the prospect of more care providers leaving the publicly-funded market or ceasing trading.
“Tragically, the human cost of this will be elderly and vulnerable people continuing to face an ever uncertain future where they might no longer receive the dignified care and support they deserve, such as help getting dressed or getting out and about, which is crucial to their independence and wellbeing.”
The criticisms were echoed by Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, who said the government had“chosen to ignore social care, preferring to look the other way as a growing number of elderly people are getting no care at all”.
“Scrimping on social care is a huge false economy. Older people are often stranded in hospitals, unable to go home, using beds needed by other patients. This turns up the heat on our already overstretched NHS, which has also been forgotten about today,” he said.
Prentis said the funding crisis would be made worse because of the increase in the minimum wage for care workers without an equal increase in overall funding.
“With no extra resources for local councils – whose budgets will be down £6.1bn by the end of the decade – the minimum wage increase means unbearable pressure on care budgets. The losers will be older people needing care and the dedicated workforce struggling to look after them,” he said.
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, told the Guardian’s politics weekly podcast: “Everyone has been pointing out that the social care sector is in crisis, on the verge of tipping points, lots of organisations including the chief executive of the NHS has been calling for extra investment in social care and he’s done absolutely nothing. Nowt. Zilch. It is unbelievable.”
Bronwen Maddox, director of the Institute for Government, added: “Despite emergency funding for prisons, today we saw little indication of how the chancellor will address the ticking time-bomb in other public services, like health and social care.”
Labour pours scorn over autumn statement for ignoring sick and old
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