Britain’s social care system needs a strategic, long-term solution, not a quick fix, argues Karin Smyth MP

This week the government announced it is allowing councils to increase the precept in order to help fund social care, as well as moving a pot of money from the New Homes Bonus to social care.

It does not take long to work out that as a ‘solution’ to the social care crisis faced by the country it is nowhere near good enough.

Just this week the prime minister herself acknowledged at prime minister’s questions the pressures on the system, and no doubt the local government settlement announcement was intended to address some of those.

To be fair to the prime minister, she also acknowledged the need for a longer-term solution. ‘That is what the government are working on,’ she said.

Well, how long do they need? Having shamelessly attacked Labour’s proposals before the 2010 election as a ‘death tax’, they entered the 2015 election with a manifesto promise to cap care costs in an effort to implement the many recommendations of the last 20 years and assure homeowners that there would be something left for their families. A promise they cruelly reneged on within three months due to pressure from local authorities that were unable to cope.

Sarah Woollaston, the Tory MP that chairs the health select committee, is right to say these issues cannot be ducked any longer, drawing attention to the impact the social care crisis is having on the National Health Service as well as on vulnerable people themselves. She is also right to urge a cross-party approach to finding solutions.

But who cares? Where is the outrage? Where are the protest movements and rallies about the crisis in social care?

On the whole voters see caring as a personal, not political, activity. Caring has become part-and-parcel of what people of a certain age do, a fact of life. Caring is a topic on most people’s minds, most of the time, which is why if you stand in a supermarket or playground where adults gather the conversations quickly turn to looking after somebody else.

But there can be no mistake that caring is now an infrastructure issue, as critical to the building of a successful economy as skills and transport – vital to boosting growth and productivity in order to raise living standards for us all.

And because of that, it is little short of an outrage that there is no strategic government approach but merely, we are told, work in progress.

Labour in contrast, should be bold, recognising the huge impact the social care crisis has on the everyday lives of those we represent.

Social care is an issue on which our Labour values are in tune with those we seek to serve.

They may not raise social care spontaneously on the doorstep, but take some time to engage, raise these issues with them, and it is clear people want political solutions. For example, when I held a coffee morning meeting in Southville, Bristol, last week aimed at considering issues facing women over-50 social care was a big topic, with strongly-held views and proposals.

Labour’s policies fell short in 2015. The central issue of how care was to be funded was never addressed and so our policies, however popular, had almost zero credibility – especially given that we were not trusted on the economy anyway.

Immediate and significant additional funding is obviously needed.  How that money is raised is the challenge.

I think people are ready to be bold. That is why the Conservative manifesto promise on this issue resonated.

I am not opposed to some sort of funding through increasing local taxation, but there need to be mechanisms to avoid this approach simply driving further inequality. Wealthy areas can raise more through local taxation than places like Bristol.  There has to be a national solution: one that recognises how families live now. The system has to be portable, accommodating the way people might move from one part of the country to another.  The role of local authorities in overseeing the system should be accepted, but properly funded accordingly, and we should be explicit that our aim is to fully integrate health and social care with pooled budgets. This will give support to enable people to live as independently as they desire.

These are the type of strategic approaches that can deliver the long-term solutions our social care system is crying out for. The temporary ‘sticking plaster’ approach of the Tories just will not do.

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Karin Smyth is member of parliament for Bristol South. She tweets @karinsmyth

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