EmailToday's launch of a new approach to funding care and support, particularly for older and disabled people, has received a cautious welcome from the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE).
SCIE chair, Allan Bowman, said that while it is vital to decide how to pay for social care in the next few years, it is only half of the equation; the other half, according to Bowman, is a need to think about the quality of care people will receive.
"It could be dangerous to assume that once the funding supply is worked out, then all the services will be on tap waiting for us," he said. The case for change had been made, he added, and everyone must respond to the green paper because of its huge implications, not just for care, but for the NHS, housing and benefits.
The much-anticipated green paper on funding for health and social care was announced this afternoon by health secretary Andy Burnham. It puts forward three main options for funding care and support:
* A "partnership" approach, under which the state would pay around a quarter to a third of the cost of basic social care and support, leaving individuals to find the remainder
* A voluntary insurance scheme, under which the state would pay the same proportion, but would also make it easier for individuals to take out insurance - at an estimated cost of about £20,000 to £25,000 at today's prices - to cover the rest
* Compulsory insurance for all, costing about £17,000 to £20,000 at today's prices and providing free care for all who need it.
Burnham ruled our full state funding from taxation, because that would put too much of a burden on people of working age; and also ruled out a fully self-funding system, with no support at all from the state.
The proposed National Care Service would offer assistance with needs like dressing, washing and moving around at home. But if people need residential care, they will continue to pay the cost of accommodation and food themselves, if they have assets above the present threshold of £23,500.
The green paper also tackles the issue of a lack of joined-up working between agencies providing health and social care. It will be the task of the recently-established ministerial group on integration of health and social care services, based in the health department, to promote ways in which government bodies could work together more effectively.
The difficulties facing any major overhaul of social care funding were underlined recently in two pieces of research, by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and by management consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers, both of which showed that most people are against a means-tested approach to providing care.
People want a free service, based on need: an expectation described by Carey Oppenheim, co-director of the IPPR, as revealing a "substantial gap" between what people want and the reality of social care provision.
From Bubb's Blog
From Flip Chart Fairy Tales
;