Social care funding: the crisis the Budget cannot ignore
Councils are rationing care as demand rises and funding fails to keep pace. A levy has been floated, but the politics are toxic.
England's adult social care system is in crisis. Councils are rationing care, providers are handing back contracts, and families are selling homes to pay for support that the state once provided.
Demand is rising as the population ages. The number of people over 85 is growing fast, and with it the need for domiciliary care, residential care and support for dementia. Funding has not kept pace.
The result is a system that too often fails at the point of greatest need. Hospital patients fit for discharge wait for care packages. Unpaid carers, many of them elderly themselves, fill the gaps at enormous personal cost.
The politics of asking voters to pay more for care have defeated every attempt at reform.Daily Herald
Successive governments have promised reform and shelved it. The Dilnot Commission's proposals for a cap on care costs were legislated but never implemented. The politics of asking voters to pay more for care have defeated every attempt.
Ahead of the Budget, a levy to fund social care has been floated again in policy circles. Whether the Chancellor will touch it remains to be seen; the Treasury is wary of any new tax that could be presented as a broken promise.
Care leaders say the Budget must at minimum address the immediate funding gap facing councils this winter. Without it, they warn, more providers will fail and more families will be left without support.
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