£7bn annual increase in social care needed

The Health and Social Care Committee has called for a £7 billion annual increase in social care funding as a starting point for reform.

Warning that doing nothing is ‘no longer an option’, the cross-party group of MPs said that the headline £7 billion figure is a ‘starting point’ and would not address the growing problem of unmet need nor improve access to care, with the full cost of adequate funding likely to run to tens of billions of pounds.

Acknowledging that the figure seems remarkably high given the current coronavirus pandemic, the committee said that the ‘gravity of the crisis facing the social care sector’ demands this response.

Its report, Social Care: Funding and Workforce, backs the introduction of a lifetime cap to protect against catastrophic care costs, as originally proposed by the Dilnot Commission, and endorses further consideration of free personal care. The current means-tested system is described as unfair, confusing, demeaning and ‘frightening for the most vulnerable people in our society, and their families’.

Additionally, the committee says that action must be taken to improve the pay and recognition given to social care workers, establishing a clear career path that is more effectively aligned with the NHS. Transitional arrangements must be put in place to ensure the recruitment of social care workers from overseas for as long as is necessary.

Former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who chairs the committee, said: “The pandemic has held up in lights the brilliant and brave work done by the social care workforce - but the real thank you they want is not a weekly clap but a long term plan for the crisis in their sector. In this report we look at one element of that, namely the funding pressures, and conclude that the government must use the spending review to raise the annual adult social care budget by £7 billion by the end of the parliament as the starting point for a wider series of reforms. Whilst that is a significant sum, it would not increase access or quality of care.

“However it would meet demographic and wage pressures as well as meet the catastrophic care costs faced by people with dementia or other neurological conditions. To address wider issues the sector needs a 10-year plan and a people plan just like the NHS. Without such a plan, words about parity of esteem will be hollow. We owe it to both the staff and families devastated by loss to make this a moment of real change.”