The Tory Government will set out its spending plans in the Budget on Wed 8 March. It is widely believed that the Chancellor will have some money to play with.
On Sat 4 March thousands packed central London streets to plead for more cash for our overstretched NHS.
Local Councils are setting their budgets up and down the land. In Lewisham alone we have a £10-11 million shortfall in the social care budget. This is despite increasing council tax and includes the social care precept for more local taxpayers money going directly into social care. Tory Government cuts to local Councils means that the burden to pay for social care is being shifted to local taxpayers.
Across the six boroughs – Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham – the social care deficit is estimated to be some £230 million. Inevitably this puts acute pressure on hard pressed local Accident & Emergency departments and further deepens the NHS crisis.
Councillor Alan Hall discussed this crisis with local GPs and hospital doctors at a meeting of the Lewisham British Medical Association on Wed 1 March held in Lewisham Hospital.
Councillor Alan Hall said: “It’s our NHS. There is a social care crisis in this country and if the Chancellor of the Exchequer has some money to invest he should prioritise the NHS and social care.”
The BMA have called for an extra £10bn from the Chancellor’s Spring Budget.
