{"id":267,"date":"2021-09-07T17:29:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-07T16:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/?p=267"},"modified":"2023-04-20T09:54:18","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T08:54:18","slug":"the-government-must-set-out-how-it-plans-to-fund-social-care-properly-today-not-in-three-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/blog\/the-government-must-set-out-how-it-plans-to-fund-social-care-properly-today-not-in-three-years\/","title":{"rendered":"The government must set out how it plans to fund social care properly today, not in three years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Evan from our policy team dissects the government\u2019s plans to deal with the crisis in social care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today, the government finally announced its plan to deal with the crisis in social care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re glad the government recognises that social care isn\u2019t working.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the government needs to set out how it plans to fund social care properly today – not in three years. Its plan seems to overlook working-age disabled people, and on its own, a cap on costs to individuals won\u2019t solve the problems faced by disabled people using social care. For many disabled people, the issue isn’t cost, it\u2019s the underfunding of the social care system as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Extra funding must make its way to social care<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The \u2018health and social care\u2019 levy will raise \u00a336 billion over the next three years. Just \u00a35.4 billion of that will go to social care. This will do little to deal with the fact that many working-age disabled adults often miss out on high-quality care, or miss out on care altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After 2025, when the NHS backlog is dealt with, money will then be directed to social care, according to the government\u2019s plan. But there are no guarantees. We must make sure the cash doesn\u2019t just end up filling other gaps within the wider health care system forever \u2013 it needs to be put into social care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the NHS backlog does need to be cleared, the challenges facing working-age disabled people will only get worse if the social care system doesn\u2019t get the money it needs now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A cap on care costs is not enough<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Under the government\u2019s plans, no one will pay more than \u00a386,000 for their care over the course of their lives. People with less than \u00a320,000 in savings and assets would not have to pay for their care at all, up from \u00a314,250 at the moment. People with more than \u00a320,000 in savings and assets will have to contribute to the cost of their care, while those with other \u00a3100,000 would have to pay the full cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This would certainly make a difference to some people faced with care costs. But on its own, it wouldn\u2019t solve the problems faced by disabled people who use the social care system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working-age disabled people are less likely than older people to have had the opportunity to save or buy their own home, meaning that the local authority are more likely to pay for all or part of their care costs. But the social care system doesn\u2019t have the money it needs to cover these costs, leaving some people waiting for their care, receiving low-quality care, or receiving no care at all. A cap won\u2019t solve that problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t overlook disabled people\u2019s experience of using social care<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A lot of the coverage about social care has focused on the very large bills facing some older people who need to go into care homes, sometimes leaving them no choice but to sell the family home to pay for the cost of care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While large bills are certainly one of the challenges facing England\u2019s social care system, older people are just one group of people who rely on social care. A third of people who receive social care are working-age. We can\u2019t ignore their experiences by focussing solely on one group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some working-age disabled people have received social care since childhood, while others begin using it as an adult because of a new condition, or one that has worsened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But our underfunded social care system often leaves disabled people with low-quality care, or without any care at all. The past 18 months has only made this worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Evan from our policy team dissects the government\u2019s plans to deal with the crisis in social care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":3266,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"display_author":[100],"class_list":["post-267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","display_author-evan-john"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267"},{"taxonomy":"display_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/display_author?post=267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}