MPs critical of care in community

THE MOST pressing concern over community care came under the spotlight yesterday with an MPs' report attacking Virginia Bottomley, the Secretary of State for Health, for failing to monitor whether people's needs were being met, writes Patricia Wynn Davies.

As it called for a Community Care Charter, the cross-party Commons health select committee insisted that government action to provide the information had to be taken if the new policy on caring for elderly, disabled and vulnerable people was to succeed.

The MPs' conclusions go to the heart of anxieties that the system is underfunded, with some care experts claiming that lack of information masks a vast pool of unmet needs.

Official guidance issued last December by Herbert Laming, chief inspector of the Social Services Inspectorate, warned councils not to tell elderly and disabled people what care they needed if it could not be paid for out of available funds.

An Association of Metropolitan Authorities survey this week shows that many councils are choosing their words carefully, for fear of exposing themselves to legal challenges in the courts.

The report insists that Mrs Bottomley should 'seek out information about need and the extent to which it is being met, and the Department (of Health) must share with local government the task of collecting data on need and the extent to which existing services are consistent with such need'.

Marion Roe, the committee's chairman and an ultra-loyal Conservative, warned: 'A clear idea of the need for services is fundamental to future funding decisions.'