The Secretary of State for Health Andy Burnham has spoken extensively about the Government’s plans for care and support service reform in a House of Commons debate.
Answering opposition questions about disability benefits, Mr Burnham outlined the Government’s thinking on a wide range of topics around the creation of a new National Care Service for adults in England, as detailed in the summer’s Green Paper Shaping the Future of Care Together.
The National Care Service
“Some 61 years ago, the House agreed to the establishment of the National Health Service to end the unfairness that the people with the greatest needs faced the highest costs and that the people who had the least were in danger of having their needs left unmet.
“Today, the same unfairness exists in social care. A person who happens to develop dementia in old age, rather than cancer or heart disease, is yet to find the freedom from fear that Nye Bevan promised as the goal of the NHS.
“It is because the system has grown in a piecemeal way over the years that it has become confusing and in many ways a lottery. It varies very greatly around the country, according to the eligibility criteria operated by councils and a range of other things.
“The serious purpose that lies behind the Green Paper is to create a fairer care system for all, in which the people with the greatest needs have those needs met and society as a whole shares the risks and costs of providing that care. In creating such a system, we will provide a better standard and quality of care.
“One in five people will need care that costs less than £1,000 during their retirement. One in five will need care that costs more than £50,000. In the worst cases, the sum can exceed £200,000. This cruel lottery leaves us with no way of predicting our risk and makes it hard to protect ourselves against it.
“The current care system is piecemeal and complicated. Many do not know that care is means-tested. People face a battle to access the care that they need. When they succeed, the care can be of a poor quality, but not always. Resources are not channelled to where they are needed the most and, as we all know, carers often do not get the support that they need to make life tolerable and to enable them to provide the care and support that they want to their loved ones, while also balancing other aspects of their life, such as work.
“This much we know, and we know that the problem will become more pressing as the population gets older. When the NHS was created, there were eight working adults for every retired person. Today there are four, and by 2050 that figure will fall to just two. If the system is left unreformed, there are real questions about its sustainability in the long term.”
Carers
“We must give people looking after elderly relatives quality support that they can draw down when they need it, because that gives them the ability to work and to balance work with caring for their relatives. If we cannot provide that support, there will be an economic consequence for the country.
“We have taken steps to support carers, and my Department has made funds available from our budget to support respite care. A crucial part of any national care service is to provide quality support for carers so that life becomes tolerable and they can carry on with their work and other responsibilities, knowing that there is good-quality support for their loved one when they are not with them. For all those reasons, we brought forward a Green Paper.”
For a full transcript of the debate click here.