READING has to pull together to make sure elderly and disabled people are not impacted by the latest tranche of budget cuts.

That is the message from the borough council’s adult social care leader Cllr Rachel Eden after a further £8.67m worth of savings, including more than £4m in her department, were announced on Friday last week.

Since 2010 the borough council has made £45m worth of cuts by re-structuring and making its departments more efficient, but it now needs to make a further £25m worth of savings by 2018.

With £4.37m of savings earmarked for adult social care Cllr Eden said making sure the elderly and disabled are looked after in the community is vital and people, health workers and council officers will have to work together to do that.

She added: “It’s a lot of money. But it is also about making sure people get the support they need when they need it — no more or less. It is also about finding ways for people to thrive for themselves.

“It is quite difficult to deliver. We need everyone to pull together or it will be even more difficult.”

Reading’s adult social care spent a total of £59m last year on supporting older people and younger adults with physical and learning disabilities or mental health needs.

But with the number of people over 65 predicted to rise from 18,500 in 2012 to 20,800 in the next six years, Cllr Eden stressed it will put more pressure on services.

She said: “We are going to try to be quite ambitious for people who have adult social care needs — the overall goal is to have more services in the community and neighbourhoods rather than moving people by default into residential care.

“There is not much waste in adult social care.

“The hope is by making these plans now we can make savings by working better rather than rushing and panicking.”

The proposals will go before borough council’s policy committee for approval at a meeting on Monday.