11.07.12
Social care funding decision deferred
The decision on how to fund the spiralling costs of social care in the long term has been put off by the Government, which is publishing its white paper today.
Ministers will publish the document later today, introducing a loan scheme to prevent elderly people having to sell their homes to pay for social care costs, new rights for carers, national eligibility standards for council care and further funding for joined-up services.
The Dilnot proposal to cap the sum individuals must pay to cover nursing home fees has been accepted “in principle”, but the level of this cap may be consulted on, as could the mandatory nature of the scheme.
Details on how this cap will be funded – since it will cost £2.2bn a year to implement – have been deferred, with no timetable given for when this information will be decided. This has elicited significant anger from medical and care organisations, who suggest action must be taken immediately to solve the social care crisis. Local authorities are also up in arms – social care is taking up an ever-larger amount of their spending, with forecasts suggesting that in just a few years’ time, due to the ageing population, they will have no money to deliver any other council services.
People at the end of life will be able to defer selling their homes to pay for social care until after their death, health secretary Andrew Lansley will propose, as the Universal Deferred Payments system will be introduced by 2015 – a loan with interest to help around 40,00 people each year.
Between 2013 and 2015, a further £300m will be transferred from the NHS to social care to provide more joined-up services, the health secretary is expected to announce.
New national eligibility criteria will also be introduced to eliminate a ‘postcode lottery’ in care by 2015. These will set out who is entitled to residential care places and help at home for the elderly and disabled.
Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said: “Today’s proposals are meaningless without the money to make them a reality. George Osborne should get his act together and hand back half the money he has taken from the health budget.”
Sir Merrick Cockell, chairman of the Local Government Association, said: “There is an immediate crisis in social care which needs to be urgently addressed now.
“No-one would disagree that care should focus on an individual's needs, but attempts to improve the quality of care are meaningless if there is no money for councils to provide these services.”
Michelle Mitchell, director of Age UK, said: “The proposals will not live up to ambition without the solid foundation of a fair and sustainable funding structure so we need the government to make it clear how reforms will be funded and set out a clear timetable.”
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