“Firstly, a huge congratulations to our many winners at The Great British Care Awards 2024, from Best Chef to Best Care Newcomer, along with all of our Finalists. Very pleasing to see a lot of hard work being rewarded.
 
The recent Government budget was a huge blow to the care sector. Once again there was no planned support for the sector in the Chancellors speech and no recognition of the need to invest in social care. The National Care Association have said: “The promise of £600 million via the Local Authority route will make little impact to the current £8.4 billion black hole in the social care budgets. The reality is that when this is divided into the children, younger adults and older people parts of the sector, it will make a very small ripple….. It is really important to note that for each staff member employed earning more than £416 per week, the cost of employing them will now increase by £615 per annum.”
 
I am afraid that we will be seeing another significant increase to our costs in April, and I fear that some care operators will now struggle to continue."