Stop the cuts to public health and increases to non-residential social care charges.

Stockport's Director of Public Health, Dr. Stephen Watkins delivered stern warnings at the Council's Adult Social Care & Health Scrutiny Committee that the budget cuts being proposed for 2018/19*1 :
"Will have an adverse impact on the NHS" and that,
"There are none of these proposals which will not damage the health of the people".
A recent study*2 has suggested that cuts to health and social care since 2010 may have resulted in 120 000 extra deaths in the UK.
We believe that the proposed substantial increases in charges for non-residential social care services are likely to have harmful effects on service users and family members of service users, including reductions in hours of care taken up, loss of opportunity for respite, loss of opportunities to socialise at day centres.

The justification given in the Council's consultation paper for increasing the maximum assessed charge from £289 a week to £400 a week i.e. that Stockport currently has the lowest maximum charge in Greater Manchester, is a dangerous one, in that it sets a precedent for ' a race to the bottom'. We believe that Stockport should be proud of having the best provision in Greater Manchester and instead call upon other Councils to emulate Stockport.

We also believe that the proposals to increase the non-residential charges are an attack on the concept of the social wage, i.e. the notion that society should provide for the additional needs of its members, rather than the individual having to pay for those needs to be met, (a principle that finds reflection elsewhere for instance, in the Winter Fuel Payment and Child Benefit)
In terms of proposed cuts to public health, we believe that face to face support to stop smoking or lose weight for example, should be available to all residents of Stockport and should not be a targeted service aimed at only certain groups of people deemed to have the greatest need. Use of the internet or other digital ways to access information are not accessible or suitable for many people especially the elderly and disadvantaged. It is noted that £1 spent on public health expenditure saves on average £14 of NHS expenditure and that social care has a significant effect on patient flow.

*1https://stockport.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/318393 56mins into the broadcast
*2Researchers from King’s College London; University College London; Oxford and Cambridge Universities; the PILAR Research Network; the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; and the University of the Philippines, published in online BMJ Open