Carers Trust responds to government’s plans for social care reform

Prime Minister Boris Johnson unveiled today his government’s plan to reform funding of the social care system.

Responding to the plans announced today, Carers Trust’s Executive Director of Policy and External Affairs, Joe Levenson, said:

“For too long, successive governments have failed to deliver a plan to fix our broken social care system, despite a rapidly ageing UK population and a steep rise in demand for social care. So the fact that the government is finally putting forward a plan for long-term funding of health and social care is to be welcomed.

“We are concerned, however, that the plans put forward today will not go far enough in fixing social care, nor do enough to address the chronic challenges of those affected most by our broken social care system – unpaid family carers. For years, unpaid carers have had to take on more and more vital care for family members as services collapsed under the weight of cuts to social care. It was hardly surprising, therefore, that Carers Trust research found only one in eight carers felt they got enough support from the social care system.

“The Prime Minister’s announcement today was trailed as a plan ‘to fix social care’. But the proposals set out today seem to prioritise rescuing a post-pandemic NHS over fixing social care. Unpaid family carers were not mentioned once in the Prime Minister’s announcement, and it was some time before social care was mentioned.

“The NHS needs long-term funding, of course. But the government will ultimately only heap more pressure on the NHS if it fails to take this opportunity now to properly fix social care.

“And if the government really wants  to fix social care once and for all, it needs to commit a lot more to social care than just £5.4 billion of the £36 billion to be spent overall.

“We look forward to engaging our local services for carers, and carers themselves, so we can work with government to ensure that what unpaid carers really need from a reformed social care system is represented in plans as they move forward.”