Backlash against social care 'betrayal' as staffing reform funding is HALVED: What do 'refreshed' plans mean for people needing care and their families?

• e-mail

Social care staff: Funding for workforce overhaul is halved to £250m

Government plans to digitise social care and bolster its workforce were undercut today by news it plans to withhold £600million from a £1.7billion reform package announced just over a year ago.

News that this included halving extra funding earmarked for staff to £250million prompted accusations of 'betrayal' and a failure to address 'poverty pay' in the sector.

The 'refreshed' plans will benefit people receiving care, staff and providers by speeding up discharges from hospitals and accelerating the use of technology, according to the Department of Health and Social Care.

This update builds on commitments made in late 2021 to support career progression in the sector and 'make sure those who receive care get it in the right place at the right time', it said today.

The reduced extra funding for care staff follows the Government's decision last autumn to put the launch of a lifetime care spending cap on hold until autumn 2025, the other side of the next election.

That plan would introduce an £86,000 ceiling on how much an individual has to spend on care - but based on some, not all, of their private contributions rather than on total costs - and raise the threshold to start receiving support from £23,250 to £100,000.

We look at what was announced today, and what it will mean for people needing care, their families and staff working in the sector below.

What is in the Government's 'refreshed' plan for social care?

Projects the Department of Health is funding include the following:

- Consulting on a workforce overhaul including hundreds of thousands of training places and a new qualification - backed by £250million, down from £500million

- Speeding up digitisation, including of records - £100million, down from £150million

- Creating a new unit to explore 'creative solutions' like helping councils reduce care assessment waiting times and share best practice – £35million

- Running a fund councils can draw on for measures like increasing rates paid to social care providers and reducing waiting times - £1.4billion

- Providing small adaptations people need to remain at home, like grab rails and ramps, repairs and safety and security checks - £102million

- Increasing the Better Care Fund to help older people and those with complex needs live at home for longer, and improve hospital discharge arrangements - 8.1 billion in 2023 and £8.7billion in 2024.

A previously announced £25million to support unpaid carers and £300million to integrate housing into local health and care strategies were not mentioned today.

The Department of Health denied any funding announced for adult social care has been removed from the sector or re-allocated to the NHS.

But it said up to £600million has not yet been allocated while it considers how best to use it and target funding on measures with the most impact.

What will this mean for people needing care, their families and staff?

Today's news sparked a barrage of criticism, with a health think tank calling it 'an ill-judged raid on a social care system already on the brink'.

'This multi-million pound cut to the funds intended to improve the system will be seen as a betrayal by those working in the sector and the millions of people left struggling to access the care they need,' says Natasha Curry, a policy expert at the Nuffield Trust.

'Halving the money to support the stretched social care workforce is a particularly low blow amid a cost of living and recruitment and retention crisis affecting social care.

'It’s all very well to create a skills framework but if employers don’t have the cash to recognise improved skills with better wages, it will fall flat.'

Social care is 'in crisis' and the Government's strong long term vision to improve it is in tatters after today's announcement, according to the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services.

'It ducks the hard decisions and kicks the can down the road again until after the next election,' says the body's president Sarah McClinton.

'Adult social care is in crisis, with staff vacancies at an all-time high and half a million people waiting for care and support.

'Now’s not the time to be holding funding back, it needs to reach people who need care and support as soon as possible. And these funds were meant to be just a start.'

McClinton predicts more family and friends will have to step in where they can, and more people will deteriorate and be admitted to hospital causing further damage to the NHS and the economy.

Caroline Abrahams, charity director of Age UK and co-chair of the Care & Support Alliance, says of the Government plans issued today: 'With a fair wind, these announcements might just about take us to social care base camp over the next couple of years.

'But that’s hard to swallow when millions of older and disabled people, and their unpaid carers, needed something far bigger, bolder and more genuinely strategic to give them hope for the future.

'With quite a chunk of the money originally promised for care now no longer available, our CSA members are telling us this is just the latest in a long series of disappointments so far as recent Government performance on social care is concerned.'

Abrahams flagged the prospect of many councils making further social care cuts this year, while all the time demand for social care is rising, making the outlook for older and disabled people in need of care and their unpaid carers pretty bleak.

'Although we are yet to see the detail of the plan we understand that it does not contain a pledge to give care staff an immediate pay rise,' she says.

'This is a big missed opportunity in our view, since we will never really make social care fit for purpose until we’ve addressed the issue of poverty pay, thereby making the job more competitive vis a vis roles in retail, hospitality and the NHS.'