Help families rescue a care system in crisis

ONE clear message leaps from today’s report on a social care system on the brink of collapse: Sticking-plaster solutions are no longer an option.

As the National Audit Office points out, the sector is caught in a perfect storm, with ever-increasing demand from an ageing population, unaffordable fees, shrinking council care budgets and a shockingly high drop-out rate among unmotivated staff.

If nothing is done soon, untold numbers could face a miserable old age.

But again and again, politicians have shrunk from tackling the crisis. They failed to implement the Dilnot report of 2011. And when Theresa May proposed a radical solution last year, glibly dubbed a ‘dementia tax’, she was swiftly forced into a U-turn.

Now Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt – who has shouldered additional responsibility for social care, recognising its problems are inextricable from those of the NHS – has vowed to produce plans by the summer.

Clearly, hitting families with 6 per cent council tax rises is not the answer.

So the Mail has two suggestions. One is that only a Royal Commission can hope to secure cross-party agreement on how to put health and social care on a sustainable footing for the 21st century.

As for the other, the Government should substantially improve tax incentives for families to look after their own. True, this cannot work for everyone. But the fact remains that the oldest care system known to man is often the most humane.