NHS chief: Tax homes of elderly to fund growing social care bill
THE housing assets of older people should be taxed to pay for social care, the head of NHS England said last night.
In a highly political intervention, Simon Stevens said it would be unfair for those of working age to pay for care for their well off parents and grandparents.
Instead, he called for the ‘accumulated housing assets’ of pensioners, estimated at some £1.5trillion, to be used to fund social care costs.
Appearing before MPs, the NHS England chief executive also revealed the vast scale of ‘bed blocking’. Around 18,000 people have been stuck in hospital for 21 days or more, occupying nearly one in five of all NHS beds – equivalent to taking 36 hospitals out of action, he said.
Mr Stevens said despite recent increases in funding, the social care system needs £1billion a year extra just to maintain care levels for the ageing population.
He told MPs on a joint health and local government committee: ‘ There are obviously big questions about intergenerational fairness of what the right way of raising resources is, particularly the relatively advantaged position of my parents’ generation relative to my children’s generation.’
He added: ‘ When we look at the question of whether working age adults should see their taxes go up in an unbalanced way relative to the accumulated housing assets that our parents’ generation have, that would be a difficult argument
‘Questions over fairness’
to win. The principle that where people have resources that needs to form part of the funding answer is almost bound to be part of a sustainable solution given the implications otherwise for general taxation.’ Mr Stevens did not specify how housing assets could be taxed to pay for social care, but he suggested extending ‘deferred payment’ schemes.
These allow owners to stay in their home, with the costs of care paid back after they die when the property is sold.
The policy has echoes of the Conservative manifesto commitment at last year’s election, which was quickly branded a ‘dementia tax’ by critics.
In England, older people pay care costs in full down to their last £23,500, often denying their children an inheritance. Ministers have pledged to cap how much people pay but this will not come in for several years.
Mr Stevens said the current system was a ‘very hard means test’, but admitted there were political problems with changing the system.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is looking at new ways to fund social care at the same time as increasing overall NHS funding.
Town halls have been allowed to increase council tax to help plug social care funding gaps. Mr Stevens welcomed recent extra funding but said increasing provision of social care was the best way to help ‘vulnerable and frail people in the NHS’.