Three-year planning phase for England social care reform is too long, says expert
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Architect of previous attempts at reform says government could announce what it wants to do by end of 2025. Downing Street’s plan to spend three years preparing a blueprint to overhaul England’s social care is “inappropriate” given the urgency of the crisis facing frail, ill and disabled people, a leading care expert has told MPs.
Sir Andrew Dilnot, the architect of previous government-commissioned attempts to reform adult social care funding, said that with clear backing from Keir Starmer, new plans could feasibly be in place by the end of the year. “I think it’s so blindingly – excuse my language – bleedin’ obvious that something should be done here, that, in the end, in an intelligent, affluent, civilised society, we get this done,” Dilnot said.
Appearing before the Commons health and social care committee on Wednesday, he urged ministers to speed up the reform process: “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.’”.
He added that he thought reform would not happen unless the proposed changes received political backing from the very top – and he urged the prime minister to “get behind” the reforms. “It’s really a matter of political courage and political decision-making,” he said.
“I don’t think we need a very long time to work out what, we just need to decide ‘this is what we are going to do’. My own view is that three years is a completely unnecessary period of time. If we simply focused on it we could get that decided very, very quickly.”.
