Daily Mail - 30.08.2019

Page 21

JEREMY Corbyn’s

chutzpah, demanding an

audience with the Queen,

deserves a wry smile from

the monarch. On becoming Labour

leader in 2015 he declined the traditional

offer of an audience as well as making no

secret of his aversion to state banquets.

He prevaricated about joining the Privy

Council and, when he did so, declined to

kiss hands. Worse, he wore a red rather

than black jacket at the Commons

tribute to the Queen Mother in 2002. HM

will not have forgotten.

SINCE the retirement of Prince Philip the

Queen can choose any of her children to

accompany her to Westminster. Andrew’s

Epstein nightmare has seen her going out

of her way to support her favourite son,

prompting a former courtier to specu-

late: ‘She firmly believes Andrew can do

no wrong and could well be tempted to

place him at her side for the state open-

ing of Parliament.’

APROPOS the Queen’s Speech, as we

noted after the 2015 state opening, the

weight of the Imperial State Crown and

the ermine robes were becoming a burden.

It was the last time she wore them. For

Theresa May’s solitary state opening in

2017 she dressed down, giving one of her

rare demonstrations of being miffed. It

collided with Royal Ascot and caused the

cancellation of Garter Day. HM wore Euro

blue and a hat bearing an uncanny

resemblance to the EU flag. Nothing is

ever a coincidence in the gilded corridors.

AND spare a thought for the new Black

Rod, Sarah Clarke, the first woman to hold

the post. She’ll find the Lords well-behaved

but what will happen when she bangs the

door for admittance to the surly Com-

mons? There have been occasions when

MPs have tried to block entry. Clarke will

be armed. Unfortunately, as the first non-

military Black Rod since 1832, she may not

know how to use her ceremonial sword.

WILLIAM and Harry

remain mute on the

Royal Mint’s branding

of Noddy creator Enid

Blyton as racist and

homophobic. Noddy,

pictured, was one of

Diana’s favourites

and she ensured her

sons’ nursery shelves

were stocked with

new Blyton editions.

A collection of her stories inscribed ‘This

Book Belongs To Diana’ was given to a

footman in 1975 during a clearout of her

childhood home at Sandringham. And

when her marriage to Charles floundered

she often joked with friends about

tribulations with her own Big Ears.

NOW free to resume her Imelda Marcos-

like enthusiasm for shoes, Theresa May has

been spotted with husband Philip in Russell

& Bromley in her Maidenhead constitu-

ency. Shouldn’t Philip steer her towards a

pair of leopard skin steel-toed boots to

give successor Boris a good kicking?

JACOB Rees-Mogg mewls at John

Humphrys on BBC Radio 4’s Today

programme: ‘Thank you for having me on

as you come to the end of your

distinguished service. There is always a

frisson in being interviewed by someone

who interviewed Margaret Thatcher and

Nigel Lawson in their pomp.’ Did soon-

to-retire Humphrys simper coquettishly

at Moggy’s blatant apple polishing?

Daily Mail, Friday, August 30, 2019

To order a print of this Paul Thomas cartoon or one by Pugh, visit Mailpictures.newsprints.co.uk or call 020 7566 0360.

Ephraim

Hardcastle

care packages for the elderly
unless the Government prom-
ises replacement funding.
The warning is a stark
reminder of the dire state of the
broken social care system. The
Daily Mail is campaigning for an
urgent solution to the social
care scandal – particularly for

Email: [email protected]

could be decommissioned. So

many people with dementia find

it incredibly hard to get the

social care they need because of

squeezed council budgets. And

when they do, it’s too often not

up to scratch, delivered by a

merry-go-round of carers with-

out enough dementia training.

‘Three fifths of people using

homecare and 70 per cent of

people in care homes have

dementia, and the impact of this

on the NHS is huge, from avoid-

able hospital stays to people

being stuck in hospital when

they’re well enough to leave,

sometimes for up to a year.’

budget next year – unless this

funding is continued.’

Meanwhile, a report by the

Health Foundation think-tank

said the system is also facing a

staffing crisis, with 110,000 job

vacancies in adult social care

which is likely to be exacerbated

in the wake of Brexit. Caroline

Abrahams, of the Age UK char-

ity, said the ‘entire system is

now skating on very thin ice’.

A Department of Health and

Social Care spokesman said:

‘The Prime Minister is commit-

ted to fixing the social care sys-

tem and we will outline propos-

als in due course.’

Councils are most worried about

the three-year Better Care Fund,

worth £1.8billion a year, which

comes to an end in March. Two

smaller one-year pots – a winter

pressures grant and a social care

grant – are also due to expire.

Councillor David Williams, of

the County Councils Network,

said: ‘We are still in the dark

over whether this lifeline for

care services will continue.

‘With budget planning for

2020/21 under way, we will have

to seek to decommission serv-

ices that are funded by these

grants in the coming months, in

order to present a balanced

By Ben Spencer

Medical Correspondent

THOUSANDS of elderly people

are in danger of losing vital care

services amid a deepening

funding crisis, council bosses

have warned.
Social care officials say they will be
forced to start cutting support pack-
ages within weeks because three
temporary funding pots are due to

end in March.
The County Councils Network says
£2.4billion of grant schemes – a third of
the total £7billion provided by central
government for social care in England
every year – will come to an end at the
close of the financial year.
With no replacement for the schemes
yet announced by Whitehall officials,
councils say they will soon have to begin
decommissioning frontline services and

PATIENTS’ lives are being put at risk because

hospitals have been allowed to crumble,

health chiefs have warned.

A report says the NHS needs £6 billion for

urgent repairs to ageing buildings that are

falling apart – with pipes bursting, boilers

breaking and ceilings falling down.

NHS Providers, which represents hospitals,

found that eight in ten bosses say a lack of

investment is a major risk to patient safety.

The Health Service also needs to invest in

modern equipment, it says, warning that Brit-

ain currently has fewer CT scanners per head

than Slovenia, Russia and Turkey. Meanwhile,

many hospitals are not equipped to deal with

the rising number of patients caused by a

growing and ageing population.

Some 43 per cent of NHS buildings are more

than 30 years old and 18 per cent pre-date

the founding of the NHS in 1948.

The emergency department at Kettering

General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is now

seeing three times as many patients per day

as it was built to treat, it notes. Chris Hopson,

of NHS Providers, said: ‘The NHS estate is

crumbling and the new NHS Long Term Plan

can’t be delivered because we don’t have the

modern equipment the NHS needs.’

£2.4billion of

next year’s care

funds at risk,

warn councils

Lives at risk as hospitals ‘crumble’

the thousands of people living
with dementia, who are bearing
the brunt of the crisis.
There are 676,000 patients
with dementia in England, of
whom 180,000 are living in care
homes and 275,000 rely on care
in their own home.
Boris Johnson promised on his
first day in No 10 to make social
care a priority and end the crisis
‘once and for all’. He has since
admitted action will be delayed,
possibly until next year.
Sally Copley, of the Alzheim-
er’s Society charity, which has
led support for the Mail’s cam-
paign, said last night: ‘It’s a ter-
rifying prospect for people with
dementia that more services

CAMPAIGN

END THE

DEMENTIA

CARE COST

BETRAYAL