Cross party experts unite to offer new approach to social care reform

A group of social care experts have united to offer a blueprint for a new approach to social care reform. The five experts have issued a statement of shared principles on which agreement could be based and have called on all political parties to work together on this vital issue with stakeholders in the social care sector.

The paper – Long Term Care of the Elderly: Shaping the Future – is co-authored by Rt Hon Lord Warner, Labour peer and former Health Minister; Rt Hon Stephen Dorrell, Conservative MP and former Secretary of State for Health; Baroness Neuberger, Liberal Democrat peer and former head of the King’s Fund; Lord Lipsey, Labour peer and author of the minority report from the Royal Commission on Long Term Care for the Elderly; as well as Sir Derek Wanless, author of several reports on future NHS spending for HM Treasury.

The group argues that reform of long-term care funding for older people in England is long overdue. But to be effective, reforms need cross-party agreement, so that those needing care, their families, and care providers, can be confident that changes will survive any changes of government. That means the issue is unsuited to partisan divide and sudden changes of Government policy. People need to be able to plan for the long term with confidence.

The authors call for cross-party agreement from politicians, experts, care providers, and older people and their families to support:

• Fundamental, not piecemeal, reform to promote improvements in quality and capacity and to prepare for demographic challenges;
  
• A frank and honest public debate about the scale of reform needed and its true costs; and
• Changes that will endure for the long term and that will truly meet the demands of an increasingly-ageing population.

In addition to the call for going forward on a cross-party basis the authors agree there is a need for:

• Future funding of social care to be a partnership between the state and individuals. As the Government’s Green Paper made clear, universal, state-funded, free care funded through general taxation is not achievable.
• A national system of funding, assessment and entitlement.
• More help to family carers so that they do not suffer for their contribution to supporting society’s most vulnerable members.
• An increase in both the quantity and quality of all types of formal social care.
• Access to a single point of information for individuals and their families that provides advice on the full range of services and entitlements available to them.
• Choice; for example, so that individuals can decide whether to remain at home or move into residential care, without undue incentives favouring one option over another
• The right for individuals to not have to sell their home during their lifetime to pay for care, but be able to release value from this asset during their lifetime if they prefer.
• An entitlement to social care funded by the state for those individuals with negligible means.

Launching today’s report, Lord Lipsey said: ”The recent political furore about long-term care has created more heat than light. What is needed is a policy on which people of all parties can agree which will reform care of older people for the long-term - and that is what I and my colleagues have sought to produce. This is a policy for long term care not for days or weeks but for years and even decades. Our proposals are fair, affordable and will improve service."

Lord Warner commented: “Reform of long-term care and its funding is one of the most and complex issues we face as a society. It affects people at vulnerable points in their life, and they need to be able to rely on the system for help. We can only achieve durable change through agreement rather than a partisan approach. Any solution has to provide more cash for social care from a mixture of sources.”

Andrew Ketteringham, Director of External Affairs, Alzheimer’s Society, said: “People with dementia currently have to pay huge amounts for care, as a direct result of their medical condition. This dementia tax is unfair and must end. This document is an important part of a national debate about a new system for funding social care. With an election looming, all political parties need to address the issues raised in this paper and explain how they would tackle not only how we fund care but also the standard of care for those living with dementia’.

Nigel Edwards, policy director of the NHS Confederation which represents over 95% of NHS trusts said: “Currently, funding of our social care system is not sustainable and action must be taken to ensure that we can meet the needs of our ageing population.

Without social care reform, the NHS and local authorities will have little chance of making the kind of savings that are required over the next 3-5 years let alone meet the challenges of the longer term.

“The solution must be built on consensus and this statement helps set the way forward by highlighting the considerable areas of agreement that already exist.”

Jenny Owen, President of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), said: “ADASS welcomes the publication of the report Long-term care of the Elderly: Shaping the Future, recognising it is an important contribution to the debate that has to take place on this important issue. We strongly endorse its call for an agreed cross party consensus approach to reform of the long-term care funding system. We may not accept all the solutions it sets out but these are, we believe, the correct principles to debate. We call upon the political parties to set aside their differences on this issue and to begin a programme of work to produce firm and detailed proposals coherent with the consensus principles this report sets out.”

Mark Ellerby, Bupa Care Services Managing Director said: “I welcome the fact that all three political parties are represented. Cross-party agreement is the only way that lasting, long-term reforms can be achieved.

“Every day we see families wrestling with a complex and disjointed system. Older people deserve a properly-funded, reformed system that offers them a choice of appropriate care.

“Agreeing a new way to fund social care is critical to successful reform of the system.”