Providers urge Tory candidates to focus on adult care

The National Care Forum has urged candidates in the Conservative leadership election to put social care at heart of their policy agendas and back sector reform.

The NCF, which represents 160 organisations providing not-for-profit adult care in England, said the care sector had been ‘watching the leadership race with increasing concern’ as Tory leadership hopefuls focused on tax cut pledges in the opening days of the campaign.

In particular, Liz Truss and Tom Tugendhat have said they will reverse the rise in national insurance that will in time become the health and social care levy, designed to increase funding for the NHS and adult care services.

Neither candidate has said how they would fund the government’s planned social care reforms if they reverse the tax rise. Tugendhat is expected to drop out of the leadership race today but Truss is still in the running to win.

The NCF said a greater share of the income from the planned tax rise needed to go to adult care services in order to fund the planned reforms, which include a cap on care costs, a fairer price for social care providers, the ability for people who fund their own care to secure lower costs in line with those paid by councils, and investment in the workforce and innovation. 

NCF chief executive Vic Rayner said: ‘Those responsible for the commissioning and delivery of care, alongside those receiving care and support need answers now.

‘We need a leader that commits to reform, commits to address the chronic underfunding and fragility of the sector and most of all commits to own this golden opportunity to co-design a social care system for the future that all can hold in the highest regard.

‘Social care is a public service and those who receive care and work in care expect a leader who sweats the hard stuff. The next Prime Minister would do well to remember that social care matters to us all.’

Meanwhile Care England, which represents independent providers of adult social care, called on the government to introduce a fully funded minimum wage for adult social care workers in England.

Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, said: ‘The social care workforce is our biggest asset and care providers are anxious to deliver a new deal for our workforce with clear career pathways and proper remuneration. However, this is impossible on the current funding which we receive from central and local government, and there is a desperate need for significant increases in funding to keep pace with the cost of living crisis and to make care a valued and properly rewarded career.’

The statement came as campaigners protested outside the offices of care providers to demand pay rises for care workers.

‘We want to see these increases as well,’ said Green, ‘But these gatherings were in the wrong place, they should have been outside Downing Street, putting pressure on the Government to deliver the funding required to deliver a new deal for social care professionals.’

Photo by Nick Kane