Health & Social Care White Paper: What Does It Mean for the Care Sector?
In December, the UK Government published the long-awaited White Paper on social care reform. The White Paper promised to set out a 10-year plan for adult social care in England, as well as giving details on funding for the next three years.
However, social care providers have been left frustrated at its failure to fully address some of the key issues facing the sector, including staff shortages the lack of adequate funding.
What does the White Paper address?
The government has set out an aim to eliminate the inequality in care costs between self-funders and local authorities. Currently, people who fund care themselves often pay more than local authorities for the same care. This will not only ensure fairness in cost for self-funders, but will also guarantee that authorities pay a fair cost to care providers.
In September, the Prime Minister announced a £5.4 billion funding package for adult social care reform over three years. £1.7 billion of this has been allocated for improving the adult social care system.
The White Paper reveals that some of this funding will be invested in:
- Housing and home adaptations
- Technology and digitisation
- Workforce training and wellbeing support
- Support for unpaid carers, and improved information and advice
- Innovation and improvement
However, the White Paper does not address the pervasive staff shortages impacting the industry, nor does it make any mention of pay.
Comments from leading Health & Social Care lawyer
Mei-Ling Huang, a Partner at Royds Withy King law firm specialising in the health and social care sector, said:
“The government has realised that its promise to ‘fix social care’ was a mistake. It is a task of such enormity that this White Paper looks to manage and reframe expectations.”
In her response to the White Paper, Huang further comments that the White Paper is only a first step in the promised 10-year vison and leaves crucial questions about much-needed funding for the sector.
On the government’s aim to equalise care home fees, Huang says that it “is a laudable aim but does not explain how the Government will attempt to achieve this or indeed acknowledge the fact that it was long-standing Government policies that created the current two-tier system of care in the first place.”
“With only £5.4 billion of the £36 billion Health and Care Levy going to social care over a period of three years, it seems to us that the Government is tinkering around the edges of a mammoth problem but failing to address the critical issue – the fair and adequate funding for the sector.”
Huang concludes by noting how the White Paper does not address the fundamental link between the NHS and the social care system. To protect the NHS, she argues, social care should be given adequate funding to improve its operations across the board.
See Mei-Ling Huang’s full comment on the new White Paper here.
To discuss domiciliary or residential care for yourself or a loved one in the Salisbury area, get in touch with Wessex Care today.
