We can’t let care costs kill our NHS

PEOPLE with dementia need help with ‘unfair and unsustainable’ care costs, according to a crossparty group of MPs, and should have a share of a new £2.4 billion booster fund for the NHS.

I certainly agree that we need to act urgently to address the crisis in dementia care, but I’m not sure dipping into NHS funds is a long-term answer.

The so-called ‘dementia tax’ in Theresa May’s 2017 manifesto — it proposed using property assets to fund caring for people in their homes — proved unpopular to say the least, but with an ageing population the money has to come from somewhere.

I think the fairest way would be for everyone over the age of 40 to pay a contribution to their future care costs.

Indeed, social care provision modelled on the state pension, with taxpayers funding a flatrate ‘universal care entitlement’, which patients could supplement from their own funds, has recently been proposed by the former cabinet minister Damian Green.

If we don’t do something like this, the cost of dementia care could sink the NHS.