Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director at Age UK and Co-Chair of the Care and Support Alliance (CSA) said:

 “The cautious optimism among local councils last year appears to have died, alongside their hopes and ours’ for an ambitious Green Paper. The Government’s failure to produce any proposals at all throws the spotlight back on the Care situation in local areas, which is certainly no better and in some respects, such as workforce availability, worse. Meanwhile demand for care and pressure on unpaid carers continues to rise from disabled people of working age and older people.

“A poll for a paper last weekend found that social care was second in the public’s concerns, behind only the NHS. The pressure on government to act is growing and our new Prime Minister is not going to be able to kick the can any further down the road. Whoever he is, he should seize the opportunity to put care on a sustainable path to the future, starting with an injection of emergency funding to arrest any further decline.”