Letter to the Prime Minister, Chancellor and Secretary of State on Urgent Social Care Reform

Today, leaders of organisations that represent adult social care nationally have written to the Prime minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to urge the Government to act now on reform of England’s social care system and publish its proposals before the Summer Recess.

In common with all people who draw on care and support, and colleagues working across social care, we are clear that the time to deliver reform is now. Reform must be underpinned by a positive vision: ‘We all want to live in the place we call home with the people and things that we love, in communities where we look out for one another, doing the things that matter to us’, as Social Care Future put it.

Transforming social care so that it is sustainable and helps enable people with care and support needs to be fully included in their communities matters in its own right. More broadly, as we look to recover from the pandemic, we need to see social care as a key part of the solution and a key part of our infrastructure.

The vision we share cannot be achieved by social care or even wider public services alone. Public resources need to be targeted to support and supplement the efforts and activities of citizens, community groups, voluntary organisations and local businesses, building on the best of what we’ve seen in our local communities over the last fifteen months.