In December 2023, I was an intern at Prospect Magazine in Westminster as my first semester at Queen Mary University of London drew to a close. It was here that I first flipped through the magazine’s Minister for the Future report – produced with Nesta, a UK-based innovation agency focused on social good.
It got me thinking. There is a disturbing lack of long termism in government. Now this isn’t just solely down to election cycles, but, rather, to policymakers not looking at the bigger picture. Vision in the UK did get better last Friday, however, with Health Secretary Wes Streeting launching an independent commission into adult social care, alongside an £86m boost to the Disabled Facilities Grant (designed to help senior citizens make their homes more accessible and avoid hospital for longer periods of time).
This is an important step forward. Shortly after this year’s general election, the Liberal Democrats used their 71 MPs (the largest contingent since Charles Kennedy’s 62 in 2005) to pressure the government into cross-party talks on reforming social care. That this message need be broadcast to the nation is the nucleus of the problem. For decades there has been an apparent dichotomy between the NHS and social care, on which, NHS England CEO Amanda Pritchard said:
“[it is] definitely not possible to talk about the NHS without talking about social care”
It’s taken us a while, but now it seems that we’re on the same page about the importance of social care, not just to those who depend on it, but to the UK’s public health overall. In their General Election manifesto, the Lib Dems pledged to establish an ‘Independent Living Taskforce’ to help people who rely on care to live more independently in their own homes. So, the measures announced last week by the Health Secretary ought to be welcomed by Ed Davey’s Class of ’24, who, undoubtedly, take full ownership of the social care scene – especially since one of their own, Layla Moran (Oxford West), was elected to chair the Health & Social Care committee.
The Health Secretary followed up on his announcements on Monday, launching new, long-term reforms that will eventually form part of the Government’s plan to form a National Care Service. An ambitious plan, but will it bear fruit?
The commission announced by Streeting last week and to be chaired by crossbench peer Baroness Casey won’t begin its first phase of reporting until 2026, and then the second phase only in 2028. Whilst long-term reform, enduring “governments of different shades”, is necessary, it is not enough to address the immediate issue of the UK effectively being at a “standstill” on social care – as per the words of Layla Moran.
Ed Davey was right when he spoke to LBC, we don’t need to wait until 2028 to take action. There are things we can do now to alleviate the pressure on carers, and ensure that everyone has access to high-quality care, regardless of cost. Otherwise, we run the risk of this “standstill” continuing, and the issue of social care reform being kicked into the long grass.
I wrote for the Sixteenth Council not long ago that funding for social care is an inherently local issue, which is why it doesn’t always matter what is spent on a national level, but where it is spent. While extra money is always welcome, simply throwing an extra £86m in the hopes it will allow senior citizens to live more independently is wishful thinking. The Lib Dems have been at the forefront of calling for a long-term sustainable funding plan for social care, and while it is hoped we will arrive closer to this destination when the second phase of the commission’s reporting is done, this is something that needs to happen now. The Public Accounts Committee echoes this sentiment, reporting that the absence of a well-oiled, robust local funding system is one of the key barriers to effective planning and progress in social care.
Furthermore, the current local funding system is propped up on data as old as 2001, and formulas from 2013. The IFS, and I happen to agree with them, writes that the least the Government could do to peddle us towards better social care – at least from a funding perspective – is to develop new and better formulas.
The next step would be to provide proper support for unpaid and young carers, this looks like:
- Statutory guarantee of regular respite breaks and increasing Carer’s Allowance and eligibility.
- A Royal College of Care Workers to promote career progression and empower our social care workforce.
- Making caring a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010.
All of these things, part of the Lib Dem Manifesto’s Fair Deal on Care, can be accomplished inside of a year. We’ve already seen how the Lib Dems can get much needed reforms into the statute book, with a good example being Wendy Chamberlain’s Carer’s Leave Bill which became law last year.
I am confident that 2025 will be a big year for the Liberal Democrats, just as 2024 has been. With this comes responsibility, to champion high-quality care for all, not just for in the future, but for the here and now.
* Archie Rankin is Chair of the Queen Mary University of London Liberal Democrats.
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5 Comments
Strongly agree with all of this. Streeting’s proposals seem to be about facilitating good practice rather than disruptive, over-centralising structural change. We should show ourselves as the Caring Party and in Parliament act like the constructive opposition we are.
All we ever hear about the social care problem is that it exists, and needs to be addressed. The political and public debate should be based on the potential costs and workforce issues – can we afford to publicly fund it, and are there enough people willing and able to do the work? I don’t know the numbers, but if, say, it costs £1,000 a week for each person and there are a million of them, is £52bn p.a. from the tax payers a reasonable sum, and are there hundreds of thousands of potential care workers? It’s also reasonable to ask whether all the unpaid carers would hand over the job to the state, and what that would mean socially and for the exchequer.
Agree with Andy Daer. Guys you’re talking about spending more of the non – existant budget surplus. This is all talk and no show.
£1000 per week is not unusual. For that sort of money you could stay permanently in a three or four star hotel – or send a child to Eton College. Why does it cost so much? Is it because private firms are involved?
It costs so much because, unlike people in a hotel, care residents often need help moving around, eating, going to the loo, bathing, getting dressed. Many have difficulty getting up in the night to go to the loo, some have difficulty telling night from day, and get up at all sorts of hours and need to be cajoled back to bed, or to eat, or drink. The amount of staff time is much larger than in a hotel. Everything that happens also needs to be recorded – eating, drinking, medicines. They often need taking to the doctors, or to hospital, and they are full board, with all their washing done. And according to Booking.com, the only 3* full board under £1000 in England is in Blackpool.