By Joe Locker, Local Democracy Reporter
Social care workers are finding people in “very difficult situations” as the cost of living crisis takes its toll on the most vulnerable in Nottingham.
Nottingham City Council says a shortage of social care workers due to pay and difficult working conditions, combined with soaring costs for care providers, is leading to large backlogs in hospitals.
The authority says energy bills for care providers have increased some 300 per cent, while care workers are being forced to stock up their own cars with supplies for those most in need.
These issues are making it difficult for the authority to budget for social care, which takes up around 60 per cent of it, as it seeks to make savings totalling £18m over four years between 2022 and 2026.
During a meeting at Loxley House on January 12, Sara Storey, the Director of Adult Social Care at the council, said: “There are lots of impacts on providers of services in terms of any building-based service, with the heating costs [which] have risen extraordinarily, so these providers are asking us for increased funding.
“Citizens are really obviously feeling the impact of the costs of living and may not be able to support themselves or look after themselves in the way that they might if they had greater funds.
“So that is leading to us finding us people in some very difficult situations.
“In terms of the hospital discharge teams and front-door teams, they are having to support people to get food and get the electric meter topped up.
“So both the costs for the council in terms of those inflationary costs and the impact for citizens is falling through in terms of our work.
“We signpost people to foodbanks a lot, and a lot of our workers keep bits and bobs in their car boots, so if they go out and see somebody and they need something urgently, they have got some supplies for people.
“That has been part of the challenge in the budget setting process.”
At its peak before October last year, there were 177 people waiting to get care and support from the Labour-run authority.
Hundreds of beds in hospitals such as the Queen’s Medical Centre are consequently being taken up by people medically fit for discharge.
A push to recruit new social care workers is taking place.
Cllr Cate Woodward (Lab) asked if the council was confident it could avert the crisis and get social care workers in.
Cllr Linda Woodings (Lab), the Portfolio Holder for Adult Social Care, said: “The underlying issue is the pressures that have been placed on the adult social care sector.
“For example, we know some of our care homes are facing energy bills that are 200 to 300 per cent higher than they would normally have to face.
“We are constantly looking out for, within the private sector, companies who risk giving up their home care contracts saying it is not financially sustainable for them any more.
“I am not going to say I am confident. It depends on having a long-term sustainable plan for the funding and staffing of social care.”
