IAN BIRRELL: We do not want a brand new assessment. The care system is rotting whereas politicians play tawdry tribal video games

This government is committed to doing politics differently,’ declared Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting yesterday as he launched an independent commission with a brief to ‘transform social care’.

Labour had pledged in its general election manifesto to create a National Care Service to support our old, sick and disabled citizens.

Instead, Streeting is offering precisely the same as his predecessors by shamefully kicking the social care crisis into the long grass as he focuses his efforts on the sacred National Health Service and appeasing doctors with cash bungs.

There have been 25 white papers, green papers, select committee inquiries and state reviews of social care since Tony Blair took power in 1997.

Now Labour has launched yet another study into this little-loved Cinderella public service that will not deliver its final report on long-term solutions until 2028.

Streeting claims his commission will come up with a plan to solve this highly complex problem in the run-up to the next election. Yet, as he admits, history shows ‘general election campaigns are where plans for social care go to die’.

He is relying on the admirable tenacity of Baroness Casey – reporting to the prime minister to avoid Treasury sabotage – and her ability to arrive at a cross-party consensus.

Yet it is hard to see how even Casey can reconcile the widely divergent political views on this issue, since some see a solution involving private insurers, while others propose a free state service similar to the NHS.

This government is committed to doing politics differently,’ declared Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting yesterday as he launched an independent commission with a brief to ‘transform social care’

Labour had pledged in its general election manifesto to create a National Care Service to support our old, sick and disabled citizens (file image)

There are splits on fundamental questions such as the respective roles of the family and the state, as well as more technical issues such as what constitutes an acceptable level of personal assets when considering who should be entitled to state-funded care and who controls the purse strings.

A ‘cross-party solution’ may sound an admirable aim but previous efforts were torpedoed by tribalism and there is high risk the very same forces will stymie reform this time too.

When Labour proposed a 10 per cent levy on top of inheritance tax to fund social care in 2009, the Tories labelled it a ‘death tax’. 

When the Conservatives suggested that people who needed social care at home, such as sufferers from Alzheimer’s, should pay for it until their assets reached a floor of £100,000, Labour branded it a ‘dementia tax’.

We do not need another review to determine what is wrong with our care system. We know it is failing far too many citizens with dementia, disabilities, autism and chronic health conditions, along with families struggling to cope in times of crisis.

We live in an ageing society that will have another four million pensioners by 2050. 

Demand is rising fast – especially among working-age adults, partly due to medical advances that ensure more people with complex disabilities survive childhood.

We live in an ageing society that will have another four million pensioners by 2050. Demand is rising fast – especially among working-age adults, partly due to medical advances that ensure more people with complex disabilities survive childhood (file image)

Local authorities are struggling to pay the bills, leaving hundreds of thousands of people with unmet needs and beds in hospitals blocked by patients who cannot be sent home due to a lack of community-based support.

Successive prime ministers of all hues have promised to fix this floundering system. Instead, Westminster lets it rot while playing tawdry tribal games and repeatedly dodging the central issue of how to deliver sufficient funding.

Now, once again, we hear hollow talk of action. Despite the desperate need for urgency, another time-wasting review is launched, in a fresh betrayal of our most vulnerable citizens and their families.

Is it any wonder there is such despair over the state of our politics?