A LEADING medic is warning that the Government needs to get a grip on ever worsening social care in areas including Leigh, Tyldesley and Atherton.

British Medical Association chairman Dr Mark Porter says the National Health Service is unable to cope with the demands for care.

The BMA is highlighting its concerns after analysis of sustainability and transformation plans showed the scale of cuts facing social care in England.

The plans will have to be delivered against a backdrop of £26 billion in cuts by 2020-21 in order to balance health and social care spending across 44 areas, raising serious concerns in areas such as Greater Manchester, which alone will need to make a saving of more than £1 billion.

While cuts to social care amount to £5 billion of the overall £26 billion that needs to be saved, in some areas cuts to social care are almost as great as those to health care.

The social care crisis is already having a knock-on effect in the NHS, with hospitals struggling to find social care for patients, leading to delayed discharges and bed shortages.

In the case of older patients in England, the number of unnecessary days in hospital cost the NHS more than £800 million in 2015.

Dr Porter said: “Sustainability and transformation plans have revealed a health service that is in fact unsustainable without urgent further investment, and with little capacity to ‘transform’ in any meaningful way other than by closing services on a drastic scale.

“The plans will only succeed if they are realistic, properly funded and have patient care as their priority.

"Although still in draft form, the majority do not appear to meet these objectives.”

He added: “When social care is on its knees, patients suffer delayed transfers, and the personal and financial cost is vast."