Age UK responds to the Government's Budget,  2017

In response to the government's latest Budget, Age UK sets out what this could mean for health and care services, and older people. 

Caroline Abrahams Charity Director at Age UK said:

'At Age UK we worry most of all about the millions of older people in our country in declining health, with a need for extra support, and on a low retirement income after a working life spent on low pay, many of whom live alone in poor quality housing that is hard to heat. Unfortunately there was little in this Budget to cheer older people like these.

'The extra funding for the NHS is welcome but we fear will do little more than slow down the decline in its ability to meet the needs of a growing older population as it is only about half the amount the experts said was required. Meanwhile the Budget's failure to acknowledge the enormous problems facing social care is desperately short-sighted and can only result in the numbers of older people going without the care they need, already disgracefully at more than a million in England, ratcheting up. Last week the Government announced it would publish a Green Paper on social care next summer but we fear for the state of social care by then.'