title: United front may help prevent crisis.
abstract: Warnings of looming crisis are all around us, including within services for older people. Recent reports warn that the care home sector is reaching a critical juncture and, without long-term planning and investment, crisis will turn to meltdown ( Burstow 2003 ). In the past five years something like 50,000 long-term care beds have been lost and now, according to the National Audit Office, tens of thousands of older people each year find themselves unable to leave hospital because there is insufficient post-hospital care (see page five ). Emergency hospital readmissions have increased by nearly 20 per cent over the past two years and the reality of intermediate care has yet to live up to the policy rhetoric.