Baroness Louise Casey has been tasked with leading an independent probe into social care, to pave the way for the ‘National Care Service’ that Labour promised in its manifesto
Social care is a “creaking, inconsistent and impenetrable” system held together with “sticking plasters and glue”, the peer leading the review into the sector has warned.
Baroness Louise Casey has been tasked with leading an independent probe into social care, to pave the way for the “National Care Service” that Labour promised in its manifesto.
In a major speech at the Nuffield Trust, Lady Casey called for a “reckoning”, and offered an update on the work of her commission, which is expected to offer some recommendations later this year.
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She said: “We know all of this as a nation, I don’t think we’ve looked this fully in the face. We haven’t had a moment of what I call reckoning, a stocktake.
“We haven’t had our own Beveridge moment. Instead, we are left with a system which has add-ons and workarounds, sticking plasters and glue, holding together something that is creaking, which is inconsistent and often impenetrable. The truth is, I don’t think we really have a system. Social care didn’t feature in Beveridge’s vision of a Post-war Britain, and I don’t think that vision exists sufficiently.”
Lady Casey argued there had never been a serious social care plan, just promises without funding. She said: “For all the reforms, reviews and well-intended legislation, none of it ever really had the full political backing that was needed because, unlike the NHS or indeed the benefits system, social care has never had its own creation moment.
“No moment when the nation decided what it was for, what people should expect or who should pay and how. Instead, we’ve inherited a system, frankly, shaped by a very different age, and people have lived with it without ever having the moment of reckoning, I think we now need.”
She explained this left families spending “hours and hours and weeks and weeks” trying to sort out care for their loved ones. Last year the Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he will no longer accept a social care system “built on poverty pay and zero hours contracts”.
Earlier, Lady Casey told BBC Radio 4 her probe was about coming up with a real long-term plan. She said: “I want to make sure that we finally get to work out what is the real answer for the next 25 years, not just the next five years, that we have a sustainable plan that the country is right behind.”