Double spend on care to make it free for all older people, says report
This article tells us care should be free for all older people who need it, according to a report by former health ministers.
This would require the current £17bn free personal care funding in England to be more than doubled to £36bn by 2030, according to the Lord Darzi Review of Health and Care published on Friday last week.
The report, commissioned by the Institute for Public Policy Research and written by Lord Ara Darzi and Lord David Prior, said that free social care would reduce the cost elsewhere on overall health and care spending for older people.
The authors cited the case of Scotland, where care funding is free for older people, and saying “increased spending on social care [there] has resulted in lower spending overall on health and care for older people”.
Darzi previously recommended that raising national insurance contributions by one pence in the pound could deliver £350m extra a week for the NHS.
Cuts to social care funding over the last decade have led to an average fall of 5% annually in the number of people receiving state-funded care, the peers said.
The NHS is also spending £3bn a year on looking after hospital patients who could be discharged, but who do not have sufficient support at home.