Letter to the Health and
Social Care Secretary
Health and Social Care Committee report:
Adult Social Care Reform:
the cost of inaction
The Health and Social Care Committee has today written to the
Secretary of State, , following the Government's publication of its
response to the Committee's ‘Adult Social Care Reform: the cost
of inaction' report.
The report, published on 5 May, argued that “time and again,
governments have stepped back from reform when faced with the
cost”.
It said “too much emphasis is put on the cost of change and not
enough consideration is given to the human and financial cost of
no or incremental change. Without quantifying this cost, we
believe decision makers, and the Treasury, fail to see how reform
can enable positive outcomes and provide value for money, rather
than be a drain on otherwise stretched resources.”
The Committee was grateful to receive the Government's response
to its report, which contained the Government's reaction to the
Committee's recommendations, but it has written back to the
Government to request clarity and further detail on a number of
questions.
The Committee's letter states ‘having rejected the Committee's
recommendations to commission research to quantify the cost of
inaction, how confident is the Government that it can build a
long-term case for reform amongst the public and politicians that
ensures the success of any reform recommended by Baroness Casey,
without such research?'.
The Government's response to the MPs' report committed to setting
out the approach to the Better Care Fund for 2026 and beyond ‘in
due course'. The MPs' letter asks DHSC to provide a specific
deadline by which the Committee can expect to see this work
completed.
The letter also asks the Department to provide a specific
deadline by which the Committee can expect to see work on the
Better Care Fund completed and to confirm whether the Government
has rejected the Committee's recommendations to collect data
about care workers receiving Universal Credit and to publish an
assessment of unmet need.
The Committee's letter also addresses the question of local
government funding, asking the Government to set out what impact
it expects proposed changes, such as the recently launched
consultation on the Fair Funding Review 2.0, will have on local
authorities' adult social care budgets.
The Acting Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee,
MP, said:
“Our committee's report found that the lack of action on
social care has been costing individuals, local authorities, the
NHS, and the economy. We called on the Government to fully
consider the human and financial costs of
inaction.
“I am grateful for the Government's response to our report
but have written back to the Secretary of State to request
clarity on a number of points which we feel have not been fully
addressed and to seek confirmation on whether the Government has
in fact accepted or rejected some of our
recommendations.
“The Government's response to our report in many cases defers
decisions and actions on our recommendations to Casey. We look
forward to the Casey Commission setting out its proposals for
reform and emphasise that it is vital that we see concrete reform
coming out of the Commission that actually improves the current
state of affairs on social care.”
