MATT HANCOCK: Elderly care social crisis

We will help elderly to keep their dignity by proposing long-term solution to social care crisis, writes Tory election candidate MATT HANCOCK

• Decades of economic growth is leading us to prevent and treat diseases better  
• However, care needs among the elderly and those of working age are rising 

People are living longer, healthier lives. Thanks to decades of economic growth and scientific innovation, we are becoming better at diagnosing, preventing and treating diseases. Deaths from stroke are down 50 per cent, and many fewer die from heart disease. The good news is that as a result people are living longer lives. 

But we have to recognise that, alongside the rise of dementia and other chronic conditions, our successes in helping people live longer means the pressures on the elderly care system are ever-increasing. The baby boomers are getting more frail. Within 25 years, it is estimated that the proportion of people over 85 will almost double.

A person aged 65 can expect to have care costs of around £40,000 on average over later life. But this average figure is very variable. Around one in ten people will have care costs of more than £100,000 before accommodation costs, while around one in four will have no costs at all. 

And you can’t know in advance. There is normally no way to predict whether that will be you and the risk is not shared across society. At the same time, the number of people of working age needing care is rising, and our expectations as a society of how well people should be cared for are rightly rising.

The Health Secretary Matt Hancock is pictured campaigning for the General Election in Nottingham on Tuesday with a visit to the Queens Medical Centre. We have to recognise that, alongside the rise of dementia and other chronic conditions, our successes in helping people live longer means the pressures on the elderly care system are ever-increasing

This is a long-term problem, and it requires a long-term solution. Successive governments have failed to properly address this issue, in part because people have used social care as a political football ahead of elections. More recently, the impasse in Parliament over Brexit has made it harder to make any progress. We must break this deadlock and move things forward.

We need a long-term solution for social care that rises above Party politics. So the approach that we Conservatives will take is the one we think is best designed to bring people together and solve the problem once and for all.

In our manifesto we will commit to an ambitious three-point plan to address the social care challenge and give people across our country the dignity and security they deserve.

First, we need to stabilise the current social care system and provide extra support to people of all ages who need it right now. This means supporting councils and ensuring they have the funds they need to address social care.

In the Autumn, we committed £1 billion extra funding to help local authorities to meet rising demand. At this election, we are going further and will commit this £1 billion additional funding for every year of the new Parliament – a £5 billion commitment across the next parliament to support local authorities to meet peoples’ needs for more social care staff, better infrastructure, technology and facilities.

A vital part of stabilising the current system will be ensuring the social care sector has the workforce it needs. Our ‘When you care, every day makes a difference’ recruitment campaign has already been incredibly successful, and we will redouble work to raise awareness of the benefits of a fulfilling career in adult social care, to ensure we have the staff necessary to run a strong and sustainable social care system. 

We will do more to support our carers, with more training, by harnessing technology and by raising the national living wage, and extra support for unpaid carers who do so much. We will ensure people with autism and learning disabilities get better, more appropriate care. We will focus on independence, wellbeing and improving the quality of life for people of working age who need care. And we will ensure we give people long-term peace of mind about future care provision.

Important as it is, it is not enough just to improve the foundations of the current system. We have to find a sustainable solution that settles this issue for the future. This is a long-term problem, and it requires a long-term solution.

Over the last decade, both main parties have seen what happens to bold and complex social care reform plans unveiled in the heat of a hyper-partisan election campaign. This issue is too important to be politicised.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks to workers as he visits Wilton Engineering Services as part of a General Election campaign trail stop yesterday. Only Boris Johnson and a Conservative majority government will get Brexit done, and move the country forward to give every person the dignity and security that they deserve

So rather than play politics with social care, the second point of our plan will be to urgently work across parliament to find a cross-party consensus that addresses the significant and complex challenges we face. This process will begin as soon as the next Parliament is established, and we will bring forward an answer that solves the problem, commands the widest possible support, and stands the test of time.

We will consider a range of options, but we will have one red line: we will protect the family home.

The desire to pass on your home is a fundamental human instinct. Like millions of people across our country, I know just how important it is to people to own their home. It is a symbol of what we have achieved in life. It is something we have worked for, built, protected and preserved, with the expectation that we can leave it to our children. People feel it viscerally. I feel it viscerally.

We all want to be able to pass something to future generations. And it breaks my heart to hear stories of people who have worked hard all their life being forced to sell their home to pay for their care.

So the third point of our plan for social care will be, without exception, that it must guarantee that no one needing care will have to sell their home to pay for it.

This three-point plan – stabilising the current system, immediately securing cross-party consensus for a long-term solution, and guaranteeing that no one will have to sell their home to pay for care – will provide certainty and security for our older population.

Only Boris Johnson and a Conservative majority government will get Brexit done, and move the country forward to give every person the dignity and security that they deserve.

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