Tory ministers accused of ‘insult’ to social care as workforce reform funding halved

Rishi Sunak’s government has been condemned for halving promised funding for reform of the social care workforce, with one charity saying it is an “insult” to the sector.

Millions of pounds have been removed from previously announced money for the struggling sector which a recent report warned is “on the precipice” amid rising costs and difficulty recruiting staff.

The Tory government had pledged to invest “at least £500m over the next three years” to the social care workforce in its white paper on adult social care reform in December 2021.

But the Department of Health and Social Care has now said its plan to boost skills and training in the workforce would be backed by only £250m.

“This plan is an insult to a sector that was once treated as a priority for government,” said Jackie O’Sullivan of learning disability charity Mencap – who said the plan had “now been diluted beyond recognition.”

Pointing to a deficit of 165,000 care workers, she said the “needs to act fast on the real issues like workforce pay, timely access to support and the underfunding of the system, before it’s too late”.

The King’s Fund health think tank said the measures were “a dim shadow” of the widescale reform to adult social care the government had promised, while Age UK described them as not being “remotely enough to transform social care”.

The TUC said that “slashing much-needed funding is self-defeating”, while the GMB health union said it was a “disgraceful decision”.

The 2021 white paper also promised to invest “at least £150m” in digitisation across the sector. The department said that figure is now £100m, saying £50m had already been spent.

Tuesday’s announcement did not mention a previously announced £25m to support unpaid carers or £300m mentioned in the white paper to integrate housing into local health and care strategies.

However, the DHSC confirmed up to £600m of funding has not yet been allocated, and will be invested over the next two years. It also said the social care workforce remains “at the heart” of its plans.

It was later clarified that the support for unpaid carers will also be set out in due course.

Social care minister Helen Whately, who spoke at the annual Care England conference last month, said the package announced on Tuesday “focuses on recognising care with the status it deserves”.

In its announcement on Tuesday, the government said its “refreshed plan to bolster the adult social care workforced” would speed up discharge from hospital and accelerate the use of technology in the sector over the next two years.

The department said it will launch an older people’s housing taskforce in partnership with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities “to decide how best to provide a greater range of suitable housing depending on the support people need”.

It said £1.6bn will be allocated over the next two years to improve NHS hospital discharge.

Recent analysis by the King’s Fund estimated that delays in people leaving hospital in England could be costing an average of £395 per night, and suggested issues with social care and housing could be contributing to delayed discharges.

Age UK’s director Caroline Abrahams said 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”.

She added: “The truth is the measures in this plan are generally quite modest and foundational, so although mostly welcome in themselves, they aren’t remotely enough to transform social care, and that’s what we needed to see today.”