Thornbury & Yate MP joins campaigners calling for action on social care

Liberal Democrat MP for Thornbury & Yate Claire Young joined with campaigners outside Parliament yesterday (25th February) as they held a rally calling on the Government to address the crisis in social care.

In an unprecedented move, the social care sector has united to protest, reflecting the shocking scale of the crisis facing care. Claire Young called for the Government to exempt care providers from their “self-defeating” national insurance rise and to complete their social care review within the year, currently it is scheduled to take three years.
 

It comes as the Liberal Democrats have released new research from the House of Commons Library shows that since 2017/18, when the Government first introduced ring fenced funding for social care, Ministers have shelled out close to £50 billion in top up payments – with the amount spent per year on these top ups for councils having soared to almost £10 billion a year.

Previous Liberal Democrat research also revealed that councils are having to pay a staggering £53,352 a year in nursing costs per pensioner, up from 2015/16’s level of £29,276 a year - an 82% jump. It means that social care can now account for up to 80% of councils’ budgets, many of whom have already had to make vast cuts to other services. 

The crisis in social care has devastating consequences across the whole health care system. Care England said last year that over 45% of hospital discharge delays were linked to social care with one in seven of all hospital beds currently being taken up by people who are medically fit to be discharged. 
 

The Liberal Democrats have called on the government to address these concerns by committing to completing their social care review the year, not over the three years it is currently scheduled to take.  The Party has also said that the government should scrap its national insurance rise for care providers, which could force many to cut back services or even close.

Claire Young MP said:

“I have heard distressing stories from people across our area of the terrible difficulties people are going through when it comes to finding proper care support for themselves and their loved ones. The anxiety this causes families cannot be overstated.

“The Conservatives’ shameful neglect pushed the care sector to the brink, and now the lack of urgency from Labour to fix this crisis has been shocking. They have pilled pressure on care providers by hiking national insurance and have kicked the can down the road on reforms.

“We need this to be a wake-up call for Ministers. As we saw outside Parliament yesterday, the whole sector – but in particular the people in need of care and council’s grappling with spiraling budgets – simply cannot wait any longer.

“The government needs to scrap its misguided jobs tax for care providers and complete their social care review this year. Only then will we be able to ensure that those across our area in need of care are able to get it when they need it.”