Hunt revives proposed cap on ‘punitive and unfair’ care costs
A CARE cap must be introduced to prevent elderly dementia sufferers facing “punitive” costs, Jeremy Hunt has said.
The Health Secretary pledged to reform a care system that left elderly people “passed from pillar to post” and leaves them feeling like “just another task on someone else’s to do list”.
In his first speech since taking on responsibility for social care, he criticised the “randomness and unpredictability of care, and the punitive consequences that can come from developing certain conditions over others”.
He said: “People’s financial wellbeing in old age ends up defined less by their service during their working lives, and more by the lottery of which illness they get. If you develop dementia and require long-term residential care, you are likely to have to use a significant chunk of your savings and the equity in your home to pay for it. But if you require long-term treatment for cancer you won’t face anything like that,” he told an audience at a British Association of Social Workers event.
Mr Hunt added that there would be greater alignment between NHS and social care services.
His comments suggest that the Government is committed to reviving the lifetime cap on care costs. The plan, which was initially meant to be introduced in 2016, would have meant the amount people over 65 would have to pay for care would not exceed £72,000. However, the proposal was pushed back to 2020 and then appeared to have been dropped entirely.
Currently elderly people who go into residential care must pay their own fees if their assets, including a home, exceed £23,250.
Mr Hunt admitted that part of the responsibility for the state of the care system lay with his own government.
“In a country that prides itself on kindness, neighbourliness and respect, this does not sit easily, and we need to do better,” he said.
“I think we have to recognise that the social care system had a very tough time after the financial crisis. Funding was cut in nearly all departments. It’s starting to rise, but from a low base and that’s created real pressures.”
A Conservative manifesto commitment, which would have factored the
‘People’s financial wellbeing in old age ends up defined less by their service and more by which illness they get’
value of people’s homes into the means test used to determine if they must pay for their own care, was dropped after critics called it a “dementia tax”.
The Prime Minister has previously said a lifetime cap would form part of the social care Green Paper, due this summer, and Mr Hunt confirmed that the new funding system would include “an element of risk-pooling”.
This month the National Audit Office warned that councils were routinely raiding “rainy day” funds for social care, while the Competition and Markets Authority warned that people who paid for their own care were being charged £12,000 a year more than the fees paid by councils.