Wakefield and Morley Liberal Democrats

Liberal Democrat Minister of State for Care Services Paul Burstow has announced the most radical reform of social care in the UK in over 60 years.

These changes will mean that people will no longer have to face selling their own homes to pay for their care. They will fix a fragmented and confusing care system, end the incidence of ‘postcode lotteries’ in care, improve training across the board, and shift the system’s focus to prevention instead of endless crisis-management.

The government’s aim is to create a social care system that is modern and comprehensive, fair and sustainable.

• No more ‘clock-watching’ homecare visits
• New rights for the UK’s five million carers to be enshrined in law
• ‘National eligibility threshold’ will finally remove current ‘postcode lotteries’
• £200 million investment in specially-adapted housing for older and disabled people
• New code of conduct and national minimum training standards to put dignity and respect at the core of care training
• Doubling available training and apprenticeships to create 100,000 new care workers by 2017
• £300 million to be invested in better integration of care & support between social care and the NHS
• More clear and practical information for families and making it easier to report bad care
• £3.8 million investment to stop army veterans having to use injury compensation to pay for care
• Encouraging people into work by excluding earned income from residential care charges

These ten changes are going to make a massive difference to the quality and sustainability of care in the United Kingdom.

Getting our care arrangements right is one of the most important decisions that the government will have to make this term, and those decisions have been made all the better through the contributions of Liberal Democrat ministers to the government’s proposals.

You can read more about the government’s proposals for care and support reforms at the Department of Health website here.