Hopes that Jeremy Hunt's time as chair of the Health and Social Care Committee would influence the content of the autumn statement were not fully realised today. Just under 12 months ago he said "providing an additional £1.7 billion in funding over three years falls far short of the annual £7 billion sum that our evidence found would be necessary to fix social care".  That sum itself is now sure to be much higher given inflation rates have risen rapidly since then.

A trawl of the detail of the autumn statement provides evidence that there is some new funding but not enough to provide what Jeremy Hunt felt was needed to transform the system. So what are the key headlines to consider:

• £1 billion investment to get people out of hospital 'on time' and into social care. This is a welcome development but the reality is that over half of it will go to the NHS. With the two-year delay to the adult social care charging reforms formally announced, it is clear the deep-seated funding issues are not about to be grasped. Providers will want to engage with commissioners and their local Integrated Care Partnership to ensure they are part of the solution to ensure people do not stay in hospital longer than they should. 
• This investment is part of up to £2.8 billion in 2023-2024 in England and £4.7 billion in 2024-2025 said to be to help support adult social care and discharge. It appears that at least £1 billion for 2023/2024 is new grant funding and £1.7 billion for 2024/2025.
• The national minimum wage (NMW) has increased by 9.7% for those over 23 to £10.42 per hour. One benefit of this is it will mean more social care providers can engage in international recruitment without upsetting their pay structures. However, the heavy cost of the immigration process (compared with the free movement rules of the pre-Brexit past) still mean significant added costs for the many providers who need to access a wider recruitment pool. As this welcome NMW increase applies across the economy it does nothing to help social care compete for talent and probably makes it more likely that social care remains a sector where providers can pay little more than the NMW. For providers of public services, they will now be writing to commissioners asking for greater cost increases from April 2023 to ensure their increasing payroll costs are covered.
• Council tax flexibility with local authorities to increase the precept by up to 2% per year. Taking into account the NMW rise, energy price rises and other inflationary pressures 2% is unlikely to scratch the service of what might be needed. With director's responsible for adult social care services already being asked to make savings I don't consider publicly funded providers can expect to get their additional costs covered without a battle, but setting out what those extra costs will be as soon as possible must be the number one priority.