Urgent call for more social care funds for region

COUNCILLORS are urgently writing to the Scottish Government to demand extra funding for social work and care in the region.

The move was agreed at last week's Social Work Services Committee.

And the aim is to help the Integrated Joint Board to focus on maintaining service provision, and continue to reform and improve service delivery over the next year.

Labour’s depute group leader Councillor Linda Dorward, above, highlighted the £12.5 million funding gap facing the department and she noted that officials had named the “existing pressures” as older people, physical disability support, learning disability support and mental health.

Cllr Dorward said: "I’m sure that it does not sit well with their families, friends and carers, the fact that our most vulnerable citizens are (deemed to be) costing us too much. It certainly doesn’t sit well with me.

"This is not just financially but morally unprecedented. We are dealing with peoples’ quality of life, expectations of service delivery and at a very basic level expectations of actual human contact. Something’s very wrong in Scotland when public sector services are failing our most vulnerable citizens and inequalities are increasing."

It was also agreed the council will organise a collective lobbying group to meet with the Health Secretary to demand an increase of financial resources to meet the increasing demands on social care in a region with the second highest percentage of over 65’s in Scotland and the highest percentage of people who have a long-term illness, disease or condition.

Cllr Dorward added: “We are the first council to agree to directly lobby Scottish Government and the Health Secretary regarding the crisis facing social care in D&G."