DR ROS ALTMANN
DIRECTOR-GENERAL, SAGA
QUOTES
January 24, 2012.
HEALTH BILL: IT DOESN’T ADD UP – SOCIAL CARE REFORM IS THE BOTTOM LINE.
Commenting on today’s growing disagreements about the Health Bill, Dr Ros Altmann, Director-General of over-50s group Saga, said:
“The government seems to have developed a difficulty in understanding basic maths: it wants to make £20 billion in NHS savings by 2015. The answer is in driving reform of the social care system, and get it joined up with the healthcare system.
“It costs £2,000 a week to keep an elderly person in a hospital bed, but it costs around £550 a week to provide home care or residential care.
“By getting social care sorted the problem will be solved at both ends: the vast majority of hospital admissions among the elderly are down to falls which could have been prevented if a proper social care system was in place, but once an elderly person is in hospital they end up staying there for far too long because the system is far too inefficient to provide for them going home.”
Ends
For further information:
Saga Press Office
01303 771529.
01303 771529.
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