Government publishes social care White Paper
2010-03-31 18:45:00
Health secretary Andy Burnham has finally published the long-awaited White Paper on social care reform. The Paper, entitled ‘Building the National Care Service’ was unveiled on 30 March 2010 to mixed reactions from social care experts, charities and the political opposition. The Paper combines elements of July 2009’s Green Paper with the more recent Personal Care at Home Bill and some new proposals for the structure and funding of England’s social care system.
The National Care Service (NCS)
Andy Burnham says he has based his plans for the NCS on the same principles that were applied when the National Health Service (NHS) was established in 1948 – everyone will be covered under a universal NCS and everyone will have to contribute to its funding. He comments: ‘I…propose a system for social care similar to the rest of the welfare state, organised on a population basis where everyone makes a contribution and where everyone has a choice over how they make that contribution.’
The aims of the NCS
- To introduce better preventive care, to reduce unnecessary hospital and care home admissions and support more people to live at home for longer
- To provide personalised and person-centred care
- To enable health and social care services to work together to provide integrated care
- To stamp out the unfair aspects of the current system, such as varying standards and access to services across the country, and people having to sell their homes to fund care.
A staged introduction
It will take at least six years for the NCS to be fully rolled out. Mr Burnham has announced a three stage process to introduce the main elements:
- From April 2011 (at the earliest), the Personal Care at Home Bill will allow 410,000 people in England to receive free care at home. 280,000 of these will have critical care needs and another 130,000 will receive support to enable them to keep living in their own homes. The estimated cost of implementing the Bill is £670 million.
- In 2014, the government will start paying the nursing care fees for people that have lived in care homes for two years. Accommodation costs will not be included in this new initiative. Between 50,000 and 65,000 people are expected to benefit at an estimated cost of £1.1 billion. In addition, the government will introduce national social care criteria to assess people’s eligibility to social care funding, in an attempt to stamp out the current ‘postcode lottery’.
- The third stage is the launch of a comprehensive NCS where care is free to everyone at the point of delivery and is funded by compulsory contributions from all taxpayers. This is scheduled to happen in 2016.
Funding the NCS
It will cost around £4.4 billion a year to fund the NCS. Mr Burnham has outlined £4.7 billion of measures so far, including:
- £1.8 million of funds to be diverted from the NHS into social care in 2014-2015
- £2.2 billion in savings from helping people stay in their own homes instead of moving into care homes or being admitted to hospital
- £500 million a year from the freeze on inheritance tax announced in the recent Budget
- £200 million from the recent decision to abolish the compulsory retirement age of 65.
However, the White Paper does not set out how the NCS will be funded in the long term. Instead, Mr Burnham intends to appoint a cross-party commission to decide this, after the forthcoming general election. The commission will base its decisions on the ‘comprehensive’ model of funding proposed in the Green Paper. This model, where the government contributes towards basic social care costs and the individual funds the rest themselves, proved the most popular during the Green Paper consultation process. People will probably have a choice about how they pay into the social care fund, for example:
- Paying into a fund during their working lives
- Contributing a portion of pension benefits after retirement
- Paying a 10% tax on estates at retirement or after death.
The commission will also look at other ways of funding the NCS, including redistributing the funds currently used for non-means tested benefits such as Attendance Allowance.
Find out more
- You can read the White Paper and supporting documents at the Department of Health’s website
- You can watch a video of the White Paper’s launch event at the Care and Support website