How the Government Can Sort Social Care
ADASS President Julie Ogley is calling on the Government to make adult social care a top domestic priority in a letter to the Prime Minister today.
The new Government, with its significant majority, has an opportunity to set out its positive plans for adult social care. It has an opportunity to shape care and support for those of us who need it today and the millions more of us who will need it in the future.
Speaking of the letter, President Julie Ogley said: “Adult social care reform has been widely acknowledged as one of the great unanswered policy questions facing us today. The Prime Minister has spoken of his vision of a One Nation Government. It’s important that this vision includes all of us: those of us who are disabled or older, those of us whose lives are dependent on, enriched, or enabled by social care.”
In her letter today, Julie Ogley has outlined what adult social care needs to ensure that all of us, regardless of our age, location or circumstances, can access the care and support we need, when we need it most:
- Certainty about funding – setting out at the earliest opportunity what money will be available over the course of the next Parliament to ensure those of us who need social care get the support we need to live our lives as we want to live them.
- Long-term reform – allow us to build care and support for the millions of us who need it and create an enabling social care system that is truly fit for the twenty-first century
- A long-term plan for adult social care – set out how social care links with other public services and supports resilient individuals, families and communities, which complements and supports the NHS long-term plan.
Funding must be based on a realistic assessment of needs, and only when this is done should the question of who pays and how be considered. These three measures will help underpin an adult social care system that is fit and equipped to meet our diverse needs over the course of the coming decades. This is an opportunity to implement decisive, long-term action, not more short-term solutions. Together we can create social care that enables us all to live the lives we want to lead, both today and in the future.
