Top medical advisers advise chancellor to increase social care support

Fourteen doctors leaders’ have written to George Osborne asking for further funding for social care in today’s Budget.

In a letter to the chancellor, they said cuts in social care funding were putting real pressure on the NHS.

And they said investing in social care was “vital to the success of the NHS”.

The government said it was already giving local authorities access to up to £3.5bn of new funding for adult social care by 2019-20.

The signatories to the letter are led by Clare Marx, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and include the leaders of a number of royal medical colleges and societies.

In their letter to the chancellor, they describe health and social care as “two sides of the same coin”.

The letter describes the impact of an underfunded social care system on the NHS, saying patients fit to be discharged are unable to leave hospital because social support is unavailable at home.

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