Baby steps
The government recently pledged £940m to improve mental health services across the country. Does this mean they'll finally turn their attention to another neglected group in society?
David Cameron announced an investment package worth nearly £1bn to improve mental health services across the country on 11 January.
As the prime minister attempted to remove the stigma around mental health and usher in an open dialogue on the subject, he said: 'Mental illness isn't contagious. There's nothing to be frightened of.
'We need to take away that shame, that embarrassment, let people know that they're not in this alone, that when the clouds descend, they don't have to suffer silently.'
An unquestionably positive move and a step in the right direction.
But there is a group of vulnerable people that this government has neglected and continues to ignore; those in need of care home services.
Prior to the joint Autumn Statement and Spending Review 2015 on 25 November, think tank ResPublica published a report exposing a £1.1bn funding gap in the care home sector.
A third of the gap, ResPublica said, was the result of the government's unfunded pledge to deliver a national living wage, forcing care home providers to divert funds away from services and into payroll demands.
Providers complained (most notably Guy Hands, the founder and chairman of Terra Firma which owns Four Seasons, the largest care home operator in the UK) that following austerity, councils simply do not have enough money to pay the market rate for the services they require, stopping them from increasing prices.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, sought to help councils overcome this hurdle by allowing them to increase council tax by 2 per cent.
Osborne declared that this measure would help them raise £2bn, which they would exclusively have to use to fund care costs.
It was certainly an idea, but not a very bright one. For a start, the increase is only likely to raise £800m, according to think tank, the Kings Fund.
Furthermore, the councils that need the greatest level of government support are the most impoverished areas, which will consequently have the smallest tax bases to tap into.
As we ponder what the government has done with the £6bn saved by deferring the implementation of the funding element of the Care Act 2014 until 2020, let's hope they're planning another baby step in the direction of care services.
Binyamin Ali is the editor of Private Client Adviser