Social care funding plans branded costly and unfair
The debate previewed here is absolutely central to the future of Local Government. This story tells us:
The government’s plans for reforming social care in England – at the heart of a planned green paper – have been criticised as costly and unfair in a report on the future of funding care for older people. The report from two highly respected thinktanks, the Kings Fund and the Health Foundation, finds that the idea of increasing the number of people paying for care, and how much they pay, put forward in the Tory manifesto last year, would be almost as costly as making all care free.
The much-anticipated green paper on social care for older people is set to be published by summer 2018 – although, having been promised before last year’s general election, there were hopes the paper would appear much sooner.
It was also hoped the paper would address needs across the entire adult social care sector. Instead, the paper will be limited to the government’s plans for improving care and support for older people and tackling the challenges presented by an ageing population.
There will be a ‘parallel work stream on working age disabled adults’, but some are concerned this report will focus on getting more disabled people into work.