Universal quality social care: transforming adult social care in England

Background

Successive governments have done little or nothing to tackle worsening conditions in social care, for either recipients of care or care workers despite promises to ‘fix’ the sector. On 1 December, the government set out a strategy to ‘Put People at the Heart of Care’. The strategy sets out a transformative vision for care to provide ‘support to those who need it so that as many people as possible can live the life they want to lead’.

Such a transformation could be a vital in building a more caring society post-Covid, where people with additional needs arising from illness, disability, or age have equal chances and increased control over their lives. The problem is that the government has failed to outline a realistic vision with realistic funding in order to deliver this strategy.

In this research the Women’s Budget Group and the New Economics Foundation calculate the cost of all the reforms needed to create a high-quality, universal care service with well-paid care workers, and show that the government’s new health and social care levy would only raise 6% of the funds needed to create such a service.

Key Recommendations

• a generous new funding settlement including £19.6bn per year with an additional £12.3bn to fund a rise in rates of pay
• an expanded role for local authorities with the principle of co-production at the centre of social care
• a new national body to drive improvement. A reformed Care Quality Commission (CQC) should sit under it, alongside a new agency with responsibility for the regulation of the workforce

Read the report