With coronavirus exposing the inequities of care, the UK government should accept the case for an immediate cash injection
Coronavirus has yanked back the veil that had obscured the crisis in social care. The unfairness, confusion and humiliation felt by people using the system is out in plain sight. The public intuitively grasps that something needs to be done. When Boris Johnson arrived in Downing Street, he claimed to have a plan to fix a broken system. If a week is a long time in politics, then last July feels like an aeon ago. Mr Johnson’s plan has yet to appear. The worry is that it has been swallowed up by the gaping maw of the pandemic.
That is why ministers should listen to the Commons health and social care committee. Last week MPs painted a picture, in England, of an underfunded system, stretched to breaking point, with a low-paid workforce who need more than clapping. The committee said, at a minimum, £7bn extra should be spent by 2023-24 on the system, with roughly 60% of the money used to cover demographic changes and lift pay in line with the national minimum wage. The rest of the cash would be used to introduce a cap on care costs to protect people against catastrophic bills, first suggested by the economist Sir Andrew Dilnot in 2011.
