Carers should be the best paid people in society, not the worst, Andy Burnham has said as he set out plans for sweeping reform of the social care system.
The prime minister said that social care in England was as unfair as American healthcare as he reflected on the many people forced to whittle down their pensions and savings to care for family members due to the current system.
As part of his announcements, he has asked Baroness Louise Casey, who is leading a commission into social care, to bring forward her review by a year with support from health secretary Yvette Cooper and housing secretary Angela Rayner.
“We ideally want to do it even sooner, but we’ve got to be realistic,” he said. “But if we say a year from now that we have that independent review, then I think we can rise to this challenge with the urgency it requires.”
Mr Burnham also said he wanted to improve the pay for social care workers and support better training and security in roles, so the workforce conditions were in line with NHS standards.
The prime minister – who teared up as he spoke about his father who is currently receiving care for Alzheimer’s – said it was a “major dereliction of public duty” that politicians had failed for decades to resolve the crisis in social care.
open image in galleryDuring his speech, the prime minister:
- Said he had accelerated Baroness Louise Casey’s review of social care so it will report next year
- Promised reforms to improve the “strength and the capability” of the social care workforce
- Confirmed he would begin cross-party talks with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, insisting it was the “right thing to do” to try to find a consensus
- Acknowledged there would have to be “difficult decisions” on tax as part of social care reform, but vowed to “be honest with people” and “do more” within existing resources first
- Said in an “ideal world” people would not be forced to sell their homes to fund their care
“It’s shameful, to be honest, that politicians have put point scoring before fixing this issue, but that’s what’s happened”, he said.
“It’s created a feeling in Westminster that this is too difficult, and if you take it on, you’re taking on too big a political risk.”
Although the prime minister stopped short of announcing concrete funding commitments, he said the savings to the NHS from fixing issues around social care could help fund a reformed system.
While he acknowledged tax rises could also be necessary, he insisted Labour’s manifesto commitments not to increase workers’ income tax, national insurance or VAT rates would remain in place.
The prime minister – who said he felt urged to speak “from the heart” rather than from notes as he addressed the care home in London – said it costs the NHS around £2.5 billion a year to have people who are medically fit to leave remaining in hospital because there is no care available in the community.
open image in gallery“I think we owe it to the public before we talk about tax rises” to “do more with what you’ve got”, he said.
Reflecting on how care workers were on “poverty pay”, Mr Burnham described the “humbling” experience of watching carers look after his father, concluding: “They should be the best-paid people in society, not the worst.”
He called for the care workforce to be “more integrated” with the NHS workforce, adding that the government will “start to think about progression routes for young people coming into social care, so they they can progress from social care into NHS positions as well, and think about it as one workforce.”
“We will not get the care service we all want until we improve the strength and the capability of care at the very front of the service, and that means lifting up the social care workforce as best we possibly can”, he said.
Mr Burnham is set to hold a cross-party meeting to discuss tackling the crisis in adult social care, acknowledging that real change would require “give and take” from different factions within the government.
open image in gallery“If we’re going to get to a solution, we’re all going to have to listen to each other,” he said. “Something we don’t do particularly well in politics [is] actually, engage and listen to other perspectives. We’re going to have to find common ground here.”
Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats accepted the prime minister’s invitation “to build that spirit of collaboration from the start”, while Nigel Farage hit out at Mr Burnham for ignoring Reform UK.
On tax rises, he said: “To come back to the tax point, I will stick to the manifesto. That is important. There is a manifesto. There are commitments there on tax, and I will stick to those commitments.”