As one of many hundreds of thousands of people in the UK with a parent with Alzheimer’s, the passage in Andy Burnham’s speech about social care moved me to tears. My mother had not even been diagnosed when I watched Theresa May announce her 2017 general election manifesto in a hall in Halifax – with care funding at its heart. Almost a decade of political neglect later, and Mum has now been in a care home for three years, with the funding coming overwhelmingly from our family’s own resources.
So it was arresting to hear Burnham speak with clarity about his belief that personal care should be a question of “social insurance” – sharing the risk across families. In practice, personal care makes up a minority of the total cost of residential social care. Much of it is the “bed and board” that Burnham’s changes won’t pay for: the cooking, cleaning and upkeep.
But a sense that the burden is somewhat shared would be a significant step forward, as would Burnham’s apparent determination to put care workers at the centre of the plan – and to expend political capital in doing so. Addressing care workers directly, he said: “I see you. And I am sorry that my profession has let down yours for so long.” It’s a long-held view of Burnham’s.
I recall speaking alongside him at a fringe event about jobs and skills at Labour’s 2024 party conference, at which we both underscored the fact that we didn’t feel the carers who supported our respective parents were “low-skilled”. Yet the national care service, with its promised closer alignment with the NHS, will feel a very long time coming, for families making their agonising way down the road to diagnosis and beyond. The next parliament seems too long to wait.
As Stuart Hoddinott of the Institute for Government said after Burnham’s speech, the prime minister should “have the courage of his convictions” and stand it up sooner. Even as a skeleton body, it could get on with setting standards and coordinating care better with the NHS, and could become involved in the negotiations on a fair pay agreement in the sector. That’s Labour’s ambitious attempt to introduce collective bargaining, including pay and progression, across a fragmented and poorly paid industry.
Whatever the fledgling negotiating body agrees is set to come into force in April 2028. So far, Labour – under Keir Starmer – has set aside £500m to fund any uplift in pay. Joe Dromey, the general secretary of the Fabian Society, which has made social care a campaigning issue in recent years, suggests that may not be enough.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
