Nuffield Trust response to Prime Minister's speech on social care reform

Responding to the Prime Minister’s speech on social care reform, Nuffield Trust Deputy Director of Policy Natasha Curry said:

"The Prime Minister is absolutely right to try to call the country and political parties together in a conversation about social care. This is everyone's business, whether it touches you, your family, or the people you live around, and the current state of affairs is completely unacceptable. Andy Burnham’s predecessors shirked this issue again and again, so if he can follow through, his ambitions represent a marked change from what we’ve seen before.

“From the beginning of Baroness Casey’s review of the social care system, we have wanted things to move faster. Burnham is right to speed up the Commission, but expediting Casey’s ‘big conversation’ about what makes a good care system too much could risk leap-frogging a really crucial stage. Getting the public onside through an honest conversation about the difficult choices ahead, and reducing the inherent political jeopardy around reform, will be essential if plans are to survive beyond the next election.

“Burnham has made a good call by not moving onto questions of tax and funding yet. We need to settle what we as a society want social care to do before deciding the fairest way to fund it.

“Other countries show us that change is possible and we are decades behind them already. For example, Germany and Japan’s care systems both underwent major reform because their governments gained public backing. Through a process of negotiation, they developed a system which could address issues like poor care quality and access, and too much responsibility falling to unpaid carers, making social care reform a vote winner.

“The social care system is struggling to recruit the staff it needs and relies heavily on workers from overseas. Burnham’s ambitions to improve career progression routes for care workers could help. But if this includes creating routes into NHS jobs without making social care a workplace that’s as attractive as the NHS, the government risks the care system simply losing experienced workers to the health service.

“The true test of Burnham’s promises will come in a year from now when the Casey Commission wraps up and we will see whether he can actually deliver a care system that works for everyone.”