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Changes to Social Care ‘Are Long Overdue’
November 21, 2011 5:34 PM
Paul Burstow has focused a spotlight on social care's 'nasty little secret'.
In a speech given at Westminster Hall last week, Paul outlined the challenge of social care reform and acknowledged that cross-party talks on the future of social care funding were needed.
The Minister of State for Care Services argued that key to making progress in the area of social care reform was to recognise the catastrophic costs that people face when they required care support. Paul Burstow also noted that social care law had been overlooked in the past and that consensus was needed to secure lasting legal reform.
Paul added that proposals in the recent Dilnot Commission report should not be judged against the misleading view that social care was free, but on 'the reality of our experience of social care'. He said: "I am also keen that in this debate we address a very important issue about understanding, which is the issue about the nasty little secret at the heart of social care. It is a secret that we MPs all share and know about, but seven out of 10 people in this country do not know about it. It is that social care is not free and in fact has never been free."
Paul Burstow concluded his speech by saying that social care had languished in the 'too difficult to do' box for far too long. He also noted that over the next four years (until 2015), an extra £7.2 billion of funding would be used to protect social care - a sign of the Coalition Government's commitment to change.
To read Paul's speech in full please click here: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm111110/halltext/111110h0001.htm#11111067000154
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