Social care reforms timeline ‘inappropriate’, says skilled – ‘get this completed’

Plans for a major social care shake-up must be sped up or risk being derailed by the next election, a leading expert has said.

Sir Andrew Dilnot, who proposed a cap on sky-high care costs back in 2011, said it was “completely unnecessary” for the Government to wait until 2028 for the final recommendations from a new probe into fixing the crisis-hit sector. And he told MPs that Keir Starmer must not to “hide behind waiting until everybody has agreed” to get started.

It comes after Health Secretary Wes Streeting announced an independent commission into social care, chaired by Baroness Louise Casey. Starting in April, the review will examine the most critical issues dogging the sector and publish its first recommendations next year.

Longer term recommendations will come in 2028, including on funding, an issue which has repeatedly been kicked into the long grass. But the Government faced calls to speed up the timetable.

Sir Andrew told the Commons Health and Social Care Committee: “I think it’s perfectly, perfectly feasible for the Government to expect… by the end of 2025 to say, ‘actually, we know what needs to be done, this is what we’re going to do’.

“That’s perfectly feasible. We understand the challenges, we understand what the options are. It’s really a matter of political courage and political decision making.” He said it was “blindingly… bleedin’ obvious that something should be done here, that, in the end, in an intelligent, affluent, civilised society, we get this done.”

Sir Andrew said a newly announced commission would be “another chance” to push the issue of the unaffordable cost of care. He previously led a review into the future of funding social care and published his proposals in 2011. But despite his reforms were never enacted, despite being accepted by recent Tory Governments.

Boris Johnson previously promised to impose a £86,000 cap on lifetime care costs but the move was delayed by then-Chancellor Jeremy Hunt after Liz Truss crashed the economy. Chancellor Rachel Reeves then scrapped the plan entirely as she battled to fix the mess the Tories left of the public finances.

Sir Andrew expressed alarm at the timescale of the new commission, saying: ‘I’d certainly like to see it report earlier and I very much hope that it will. I don’t get the impression that Louise Casey is somebody who likes to hang about. I can’t think of any reason why it should take three years, I simply can’t.

“The commission that I was part of took a year, a year from being commissioned to final reporting… Three years seems to me an inappropriate time, and in particular it gets us too close to the next election.”

Kathryn Smith, chief executive at the Social Care Institute for Excellence, said that each time reform is promised but fails to be delivered feels like “groundhog day”. Waiting for recommendations in 2028 will be “too late for too many people”, she added, telling MPs: “There has to be action now, there has to be funding now.”

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said Sir Andrew is “absolutely right” on the timing for reform, adding: “The social care crisis is forcing patients to be treated in hospital corridors while elderly people sell their homes to pay for care. After years of being let down so badly by the Conservatives, they cannot afford to wait while the Government drags its heels for another three years.”

He challenged Mr Starmer in the Commons during PMQs, urging him to make 2025 “the year we finally rise to the challenge of fixing care”. The PM said he wanted “cross-party consensus” on the issue – and noted social care funding announced in the Budget as well as an increased carer’s allowance. But he did not commit to a new timetable for the commission.