WORCESTERSHIRE is facing a "demographic timebomb" with soaring numbers of elderly people in need of long-term care and support, a leading councillor has warned.
Labour Councillor Peter Pinfield, who represents Droitwich West on Worcestershire County Council, wants an extra half a million pounds to be spent this year on the county's elderly and dementia services.
Coun Pinfield, who heads-up the council's watchdog scrutiny committee overseeing social care in Worcestershire, will attempt to amend the Conservative leadership's proposed budget when it comes before a meeting of the full council today.
The county is budgeting to spend £63.7m on older people's services in the coming year - an increase of nearly 15 per cent - but Coun Pinfield says more is required.
"The figures for those who will need our care and support in old age in the very near future are alarming," he said.
"Here in Worcestershire we are facing a demographic timebomb. Those in Worcestershire with a limiting long-term illness will rise to a staggering 67,800 over the next fe years, and by 2020 it will be in the region of 160,000."
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