Access Social Care’s response to Governments social care announcements…

Unfortunately, the Prime Minister's long-awaited social care reforms disappoint. The funding system will change, with a cap on lifetime care costs, which is important. But the system will remain woefully underfunded. After the NHS has taken its share of the new money-pot, most of what will be left for social care will be spent on the cap, effectively only replacing money that has been taken out of the system, leaving little for local authorities to properly pay the social care workforce or make up the funding gap created by years of austerity.  

The means-tested threshold has been raised, which is intended to bring more people into the state-funded care system. However, this will not work as intended, because cash-strapped local authorities will not be able to support this extra demand on services and will continue to unlawfully delay and deny people the social care they have a right to in order to balance their books.

Access Social Care research shows how the cuts to local authority grants have had an uneven impact across the country, disproportionately affecting poorer areas with the greatest need. There is nothing in the proposals to address this imbalance. For millions of people, care will continue to be inadequate, or absent.