Social Care Cuts Went ‘Too Far” Admits Former Social Care Secretary

Former health and social care secretary Jeremy Hunt admitted in a TV debate earlier this week that cuts in social care have gone too far.

During a BBC television debate on Tuesday (18 June) with fellow leadership candidates Hunt admitted the care system needed more money.

Hunt, now foreign secretary but formerly the country’s longest serving health secretary, said “some of the cuts in social care did go too far” and said that social care would be one of his top priorities should he become prime minister.

Hunt was responding to a question from Tina in Tunbridge Wells via a video link.

The woman had told the MPs, which included Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Sajid Javid and Rory Stewart, that she had been a foster parent to more than 100 children over the past 27 years but was struggling to get special education needs support and doctors’ appointments.

Stewart said: ‘I believe our care system is a disgrace, it’s a scandal. It cannot be tinkered with around the edges. It’s the great unfinished revolution of our society.

‘We set up the NHS but we have not solved social care. In order to fund it properly we are going to need more money.’

A poll earlier this month by ComRes, commissioned by the NHS Confederation, revealed 76% of MPs agree there is a crisis in social care with three in five saying cuts to the service have left people in their constituencies suffering.