Wes Streeting has branded it “outrageous” that the Tories promised to introduce a cap on care costs without the funding needed.
The Health Secretary launched a blistering attack on the former government and blamed its handling of the public finances for the cancellation of the cap. But the Labour minister failed to say how he would fix the social care system despite pledging to reform it alongside the NHS.
And he dodged a question on how he felt that people were forced to sell their homes to pay for care, only saying: “There are lots of things that we would like to do, but we are constrained by the state of the public finances.” The former Conservative government was due to introduce a new £86,000 cap on the amount anyone in England would have to spend on their personal care over their lifetime.
The move was originally planned to come into effect from October 2023 but the Tories delayed it until October 2025. In July Chancellor Rachel Reeves said she was scrapping the plans after she discovered a £22billion black hole in the public finances left over from the Tories.
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Speaking on Wednesday, Mr Streeting told the Mirror: “I think it’s outrageous, actually, that the last government promised to introduce charging reforms in October next year, when they must have known before full well the advice that I received on day one in the department, which is, firstly, if the money was there, the preparation hadn’t been done to actually roll out the charging reforms. And secondly, the money wasn’t there, so they went into that election and lied to millions of people across the country, creating false hope and false security, and that is not the way this government is going to behave.”
He made the comments at an event launching the final report from think tank IPPR’s cross-party Commission on Health and Prosperity, a three-year long enquiry chaired by top surgeon Lord Ara Darzi into health and the economy. It followed Lord Darzi’s separate review into the NHS that last week concluded the health service is “in serious trouble” and that it is “impossible” to understand the situation in the NHS without understanding the state of social care. The former health minister said the “dire state of social care” means 13% of NHS beds are occupied by people waiting for social care support or care in “more appropriate” settings.
Lib Dem Health and Social Care spokeswoman Helen Morgan said: “Time and time again the last Conservative government left social care out of the conversation and left it as the elephant in the room – now that needs to change. Liberal Democrats have called for cross party talks to solve the social care crisis and for care workers to receive a special minimum wage. We’ll keep putting the case to this new government with our renewed focus on the nation’s health and care services.”