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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/tories-are-edging-towards-social-care-taxation-xllkgksmg
Tax and Spend. Tax and Spend. We have no Money!
Realisation is growing that there is no market-based solution to the crisis in elderly care and the state must intervene
It’s like putting a broken leg into plaster then kicking away the crutches on which the patient is leaning. Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, has promised “whatever action is required” in the budget to help the NHS cope with coronavirus and yet the government still has no answer to the crisis in social care.
The Covid-19 outbreak is another reminder that the divide between the health and social care systems is not only artificial, it is counterproductive. With elderly people more vulnerable to the disease, the pressure on hospitals is sure to grow but what could turn difficulty into disaster is the lack of social care for those who are well enough to go home.
Already NHS wards are full of elderly patients who have no medical need to be in hospital. More than 148,000 bed days were lost in December alone as a result of delayed discharges. There has also been a 35 per cent rise in the number of dementia patients turning up at accident and emergency departments over the past five years following day care centre closures.
The system is driven by perverse incentives. It costs about £250 a day for someone to be on a hospital ward and £100 for a domiciliary care package, so from the point of view of the NHS (and the taxpayer) it makes sense for elderly people to go home quickly — but councils, which are responsible for funding social care, have a financial motive to transfer the cost to hospitals. Although health funding has been ring-fenced, local authorities face a shortfall of almost £4 billion by 2025 in social care budgets.
Last year a report from Policy Exchange, the centre-right think tank founded by Michael Gove, proposed bringing social care into line with the NHS and making it free at the point of use. The £11 billion cost should, it argued, be funded from general taxation, with a £5,000 means-tested annual contribution from those who need social care. The plan was even more generous than Labour’s manifesto pledge to introduce free personal care (help with washing and dressing) but it is now being taken seriously by ministers.
It is significant that the foreword was written by Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Commons leader who is hardly a champion of socialism. “This is one area, it is clear, where the state has a significant role to play,” he argued, insisting that the policy was “something we can afford as a nation”.
Tax and Spend. Tax and Spend. We have no Money!
Realisation is growing that there is no market-based solution to the crisis in elderly care and the state must intervene
It’s like putting a broken leg into plaster then kicking away the crutches on which the patient is leaning. Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, has promised “whatever action is required” in the budget to help the NHS cope with coronavirus and yet the government still has no answer to the crisis in social care.
The Covid-19 outbreak is another reminder that the divide between the health and social care systems is not only artificial, it is counterproductive. With elderly people more vulnerable to the disease, the pressure on hospitals is sure to grow but what could turn difficulty into disaster is the lack of social care for those who are well enough to go home.
Already NHS wards are full of elderly patients who have no medical need to be in hospital. More than 148,000 bed days were lost in December alone as a result of delayed discharges. There has also been a 35 per cent rise in the number of dementia patients turning up at accident and emergency departments over the past five years following day care centre closures.
The system is driven by perverse incentives. It costs about £250 a day for someone to be on a hospital ward and £100 for a domiciliary care package, so from the point of view of the NHS (and the taxpayer) it makes sense for elderly people to go home quickly — but councils, which are responsible for funding social care, have a financial motive to transfer the cost to hospitals. Although health funding has been ring-fenced, local authorities face a shortfall of almost £4 billion by 2025 in social care budgets.
Last year a report from Policy Exchange, the centre-right think tank founded by Michael Gove, proposed bringing social care into line with the NHS and making it free at the point of use. The £11 billion cost should, it argued, be funded from general taxation, with a £5,000 means-tested annual contribution from those who need social care. The plan was even more generous than Labour’s manifesto pledge to introduce free personal care (help with washing and dressing) but it is now being taken seriously by ministers.
It is significant that the foreword was written by Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Commons leader who is hardly a champion of socialism. “This is one area, it is clear, where the state has a significant role to play,” he argued, insisting that the policy was “something we can afford as a nation”.
