Councillor Linda Thomas is leader of Bolton Council and a national spokesperson for community wellbeing

Historic underfunding of adult social care is impacting on inpatient services. Social care needs to be put on an equal footing with the NHS and government needs to address immediate pressures as part of the £2.3bn funding gap facing social care by 2020.

Over the last four year the cost of emergency admissions rose from £13.4bn to 13.7bn.

There are challenges in managing emergency admissions, including capacity in the community to prevent emergency admissions and a rise in the number of emergency admissions.

Councils are working closely with the NHS to avoid unnecessary admissions to hospital through better self-management of conditions, better community support and better advice and information.

However, due to historic underfunding, the adult social care system is under significant pressure and community based services are being reduced, which is impacting on inpatient services. This reduced government funding means councils have had to spend less on key prevention work – £64m less in the past year.

The local government association has argued for a focus on preventing hospital admissions rather than focusing disproportionately on delayed discharges of care. Health leaders and I are called for urgent funding for councils to invest in prevention measures which will help to reduce public costs.

A whole-system approach to health and social care – which recognises that community based support, including adult social care, helps to prevent hospital admission - is needed to ensure that people are adequately supported through their patient journey.