SERIOUS questions about how the Scottish Government plans to fund the care of more elderly people in their own homes have been raised by Holyrood.
The Public Audit Committee has investigated the current drive to try and prevent more pensioners being admitted to hospital by providing better services in the community.
Their report, published yesterday, asks officials to fill in gaps in information - such as how much achieving this goal depends on cutting spending on hospital care.
They also want to know how the government will support NHS boards to release money from hospitals to invest in the community.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde told the committee the idea of it spending less on hospital care was "undermined" by political goals such as waiting times targets.
The report also notes that when in the 1980s the care of mental health patients was moved out of hospitals, bridging finance was used to run services in both while the change took place. It said hospital beds only closed once there was evidence that they were no longer required.
The audit committee says spending on health and social care for older people will need to rise from approximately £4.5 billion in 2011/12 to nearly £8bn by 2031 to meet rising demand, but the overall annual Scottish Government budget is being reduced and is not expected to return to 2009/10 levels until 2025/26.
The Herald is campaigning for a review of NHS and social care capacity and a plan to show what is required to meet the needs of the growing elderly population in hospitals and the community.
Hugh Henry, committee convener, said: "The committee recognises the long-term policy of governments to shift care from hospitals to home or the community continues to be a challenge. This is made all the more difficult by rising demand from Scotland's ageing population and budgetary pressures.
"This challenge is one of the biggest facing Scotland. It means it is vital progress is made in the reshaping care for older people programme as it involves changing the way care is provided whilst continuing to meet current and future demands within the budget available."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article