News Story

Care & Support Alliance – Social Care Policy Position

September 3, 2019

The Care & Support Alliance has gone through a process of reviewing and refreshing our overall policy position on social care in consultation with our 75 members.

The aim of this process was to develop a clear policy position ahead of a likely range of autumn activities relevant to funding and reform of the social care system.

To inform this a survey was held to gain insight into the top-line positions of CSA members. We then held a day-long workshop to enable CSA members to feed-in more detail and debate and discuss our policy positions.

We did this to find a clear policy solution we could advocate for on behalf of all CSA members and support to pro-actively move the debate forward.

What the CSA wants to see

In the short-term, the Government must:

  1. Use the Spending Review to provide an immediate injection of funding for 2020/21 sufficient to stabilise the social care system and ensure it does not collapse in the worst affected areas.

Looking to the medium term the Government must bring forward a plan to create a fair, effective and sustainable care system with the following features:

  1. Risk must be pooled on a compulsory whole (adult) population basis, funded through taxation.
  2. Care should be free at the point of use.
  3. There must be an independent, standardised national eligibility threshold and assessment process for social care.
  4. Eligibility should be set at a ‘moderate’ level to enable those in need of community and preventative support to access it; any proposed solution must not tighten eligibility criteria or otherwise reduce access to social care.
  5. Any proposed solution must address the care and support needs of working age sick and disabled adults as well as those of older people
  6. Any proposed solution must ensure increased support for unpaid carers, e.g. increased breaks and core support, including helping carers to juggle work and care and increased Carer’s Allowance and carers’ benefits.

The CSA will continue to campaign on and advocate for these positions throughout the autumn and beyond.