MPs warn older people will suffer due to delays in care cost cap
This is a really serious issue and one which I think will impact significantly on vulnerable elderly people in rural communities.
Delays in implementing the government’s cap on care costs could leave older people unable to cope with unlimited expenses, according to parliament’s spending watchdog.
The public accounts committee has called for ministers to draw up an urgent and clear timetable for implementing the cap in a report released on Wednesday.
The MPs warned that without a cap, cuts in local government finance could lead to “cost shunting”, with people forced to pay extra for their requirements or councils cutting other services.
The report has been released just weeks after David Cameron was criticised for protesting about cuts to public services suggested by his own Tory council.
The Conservative leader of Oxfordshire county council told the prime minister the council was facing new financial pressures because functions including social care had been transferred to local government.