ARC England welcomes the speech from Baroness Casey at the Nuffield Trust Summit. We appreciate her honesty and openness about her findings so far. She has reflected that her initial conclusions have been shaped by the voices of those with lived experience.
She acknowledged that despite numerous previous policies and reviews, there is still much work to be done, and added that policy is no good without the resources to deliver.
Casey states that England’s social care system is failing and urgently needs reform, describing the moment as a “reckoning and renewal” for social care. She said the country must have an honest national conversation about what a future care system should look like alongside the NHS.
In her speech, she stated that:
- Social care is overshadowed by the NHS, with what she described as a major power imbalance where the NHS “wins every time”.
- The system relies heavily on underpaid care workers and fragile provider markets.
- The NHS has effectively become a “national hospital service”, with too little focus on community and social care.
- There are concerns about Integrated Care Boards cutting continuing healthcare budgets instead of supporting care needs.
Her “five simple asks” to government
Casey said ministers should take several immediate practical actions, including:
- Create a national safeguarding board for social care with legal powers.
- Scale up dementia clinical trials.
- Appoint a national “dementia czar”.
- Accelerate a new service framework for frailty and dementia care.
- Introduce a fast-track “passport” to support people with motor neurone disease.
Whilst we welcome these asks, we are disappointed that there was no specific mention of reforms needed to ensure people with learning disabilities and autism can continue to lead fulfilling lives, including allocation of adequate funding and improvements required within commissioning practice, We hope to see progress in these areas as her work continues.
We would welcome the opportunity to work with Baroness Casey on behalf of ARC England members, many of whom have ideas and potential solutions to share for challenges within social care.
Samantha Leonard