Age UK responds to new government funding for social care announcement

Caroline Abrahams, co-chair of the Care & Support Alliance & Charity Director of Age UK said:

“With a fair wind, these announcements might just about take us to social care base camp over the next couple of years, but that’s hard to swallow when millions of older and disabled people, and their unpaid carers, needed something far bigger, bolder and more genuinely strategic to give them hope for the future. The truth is the measures in this plan are generally quite modest and foundational, so although mostly welcome in themselves, they aren’t remotely enough to transform social care, and that’s what we needed to see today.

“With quite a chunk of the money originally promised for care now no longer available, our CSA members are telling us this is just the latest in a long series of disappointments so far as recent government performance on social care is concerned. And with suggestions that many councils are likely to make further social care cuts this year,  the jury is out as to whether these measures will be sufficient to compensate, or whether the current already inadequate level of provision will have to be reduced further still - while all the time demand for social care is rising. The outlook for older and disabled people in need of care, and their unpaid carers, is therefore pretty bleak.

“Although we are yet to see the detail of the Plan we understand that it does not contain a pledge to give care staff an immediate pay rise. This is a big missed opportunity in our view, since we will never really make social care fit for purpose until we’ve addressed the issue of poverty pay, thereby making the job more competitive vis a vis roles in retail, hospitality and the NHS. 

“You just can’t provide really good care, tailored to people’s individual needs & aspirations, if you haven’t got the staff to do it. Government knows this as well as we do, so it’s all the more disappointing that they aren’t taking action on care pay. If there was one element that should have been in the Plan this was it.”