U-turn on plans to fund care: What a mess we’re in

Writing in the Daily Mail, columnist Simon Heffer, addresses the apparent U-turn on government care policy.

He points out that Care Minister Norman Lamb announced last July that people would no longer be forced to sell their homes to pay for long-term care in old age. And it seemed to be a policy, and a promise, set in stone.

Guess what – now it appears to be nothing of the sort.

Heffer claims “there has been no great Government announcement – in fact, the U-turn has been slipped out in virtual secrecy. “

The devil, as always is in the detail, with the latest consultation proposals making provisions for means testing “that would penalise tens of thousands of hard-working, thrifty people each year.”

Heffer adds: “Essentially, it would force many members of the middle class to spend their assets on care or face having to sell their homes — as 40,000 a year do now.

“In doing so, it would make a mockery of their efforts to scrimp and save for their retirement — often at a cost to their quality of life in middle age — in the hope that financial rectitude would bring its own rewards.”

I have prided myself for years in not ever letting politics jaundice my views on care, but this coalition is something else when it comes to offering defined leadership – and not least, information – to the care sector.

Indeed, Heffer is correct when he writes the change would be “shocking breach of promise.”

To recap, Mr Lamb had pledged to ring-fence people’s homes by offering a deferred payment scheme that would allow the state to recover the cost of care (up to a capped level of £72,000) from estates after death.

Succinctly, Heffer rightly adds: “However, this may not now be so. The promise of a universal scheme of deferred payments for care, whether residential or in the elderly person’s own home, may be diluted so that homeowners with assets (excluding their house) over £23,500 would be forced to run them down to that level before qualifying for help.”

Well, Mr Cameron, where do we go from here?

Clearly there needs to be a major overhaul of care funding and the problem is not going to go away. How much worse can this all get? My care provider members are essential to the wellbeing of our elderly, frail and chronically sick. Frankly, the government’s commitment to them as they have effectively help roll out its modernisation policies is shameful. We are on the cusp of major social care crisis and we’re looking for a lead.

Things must be bad when the Mail, of all newspapers, criticises these new Government proposals, agreeing with Labour’s shadow care minister that it’s  “an attempt to ‘pull the wool over the eyes’ of the elderly.”

Heffer concludes his well-structured rant by writing: “Much as I am always loath to agree with the present Opposition, in this case they are absolutely right.”

Back to the drawing board (does anyone use that expression any more?). . .