MPs want older people to pay to fund personal care for all

Tue,26 June 2018
News Equality & Rights

The Housing, Communities and Local Government and Health and Social Care Committees' joint report calls for a sustainable funding solution for adult social care.

Read report

Read Commons statement by Committee

Social Care Premium

The report recommends the introduction of a ‘Social Care Premium’, paid as part of National Insurance or a new not-for-profit social insurance fund which would only be used for social care.

The premium would only be paid by those aged over 40 and later extended to those over the age of 65.

Personal care for all

The Committees say that personal care, such as help with washing, dressing and eating, should eventually be delivered free to everyone who needs it, but that accommodation costs should continue to be paid on a means-tested basis.

Given the cost, free personal care should first be extended to people deemed to have 'critical' needs.

Note

There are a growing number of reports discussing future funding of Health and Social Care. They propose various solutions, including:

  • higher taxation
  • higher national insurance
  • financial contributions from pensioners
  • increasing the financial burden on  future generations, who may end up less well off than previous generations - either generation X, Millennials (Generation Y) or Generation Z.

The reports include:

Securing the future: funding health and social care to the 2030s - Institute for Fiscal Studies

Adult social care funding: a local or national responsibility? - Institute for Fiscal Studies

A fork in the road: next steps for social care funding reform – Kings Fund

A New Generational Contract – Resolution Foundation

A welfare generation: lifetime welfare transfers between generations - Resolution Foundation

How to fix the funding of health and social care - Institute for Government

The generations

  • The forgotten generation (born 1896-1910)
  • The greatest generation (born 1911-25)
  • The silent generation (born 1926-45
  • Baby boomers (born 1946 – early to mid-60s)
  • Generation X (born early to mid-60s to the early 1980s)
  • Millennials – Generation Y (born early 80’s to mid-90s/early 2000s)
  • Generation Z (born mid-90s/early 2000s)