Three reasons to be fearful about a cap on social care costs

Few people will benefit from these timid proposals – more radical action is needed to meet the needs of our ageing population, by Stephen Burke

The government has at last published its plans for care funding more than 18 months after the Dilnot commission’s report. As widely reported, these plans include a cap on care costs of £75k, with the means-test threshold raised to £123k.

Some have welcomed the announcement. But there are at least three reasons why it isn’t good news. Firstly it doesn’t deal with the chronic underfunding of care at a time when demand is growing because of our ageing population. The cap substitutes private spending by mainly wealthier families with public spending. It doesn’t provide extra funding for all the current unmet needs – there’s almost one million older people already missing out on care and support – let alone the growing needs of older people in the future.

Secondly the cap is misleading and even more complex than the current system. A £75k cap would only cover “standard-rate care” costs for people with high care needs. Therefore anyone in residential care would face much higher bills for their “hotel” costs and above standard-rate care costs and may still have to sell their home to pay for care home fees. For many families, having to pay at least £75k will be daunting on its own and may require them to sell their home. An older person would probably have to live in a care home for five years before they reach the cap of £75k – much longer than the average length of stay – and after five years they could have care home bills of £200k or more in total once the “hotel” costs are added. There is also no evidence that the £75k cap would create a new range of insurance products to pay for care.

Thirdly, by developing a new funding stream for crisis care, the proposal does not promote either integration between care and health or prevention. Both of these are critical to making better use of scarce resources and delivering better care in, or closer to, older people’s homes.

Older people and their families need to look at these proposals very closely. They will find that few people will benefit – some wealthy families and some poorer older people. Most ordinary families could still face losing their home to pay for care. When families realise what is being proposed, they will be in for a shock. The government is sneakily shifting the cost of care further and further on to older people and their families.

With our ageing population and growing care needs, these proposals are very timid and just a drop in the ocean. They won’t stand the test of time. The care system is already massively underfunded and by 2017 the care gap will be even larger.

We need urgent and radical action to meet the care needs of our ageing population. A simpler, fairer and more immediate solution would be to raise the assets threshold to £200,000 or £250,000 and use extra funding to fill the gaps in the current system.

The failure by this government to meet the care challenge means that the next government will have to sort this out to meet the care needs of our ageing population.

Stephen Burke is director of United for All Ages and www.goodcareguide.co.uk