Plans to reform funding of adult social care concentrate ‘too much on the inheritances of the children of elderly people’, rather than improving quality, veteran Conservative MP John Redwood said today.
Credit: iStock
However, the Department of Health criticised his analysis, saying that it ‘was inaccurate and misleading on a number of counts’.
Redwood’s study, for the Centre for Policy Studies, comes as reports suggest the government will agree Dilnot’s plan for funding in England as part of the next Spending Review. Published last July, the Dilnot report proposed a cap on individual contributions to care costs of £35,000, above which the government would meet the costs.
Redwood criticised the cap, which he said would largely protect the inheritances of better-off families. ‘It is difficult to see this is a priority at a time of need for spending restraint.’
His report also argued that the cap ‘will not do as much as some hope for the relatives it is meant to help’.
Dilnot proposed that, in each case, the local council would assess needs and work out how much it would cost to meet these at the local authority rate. It is this cost that would then be met by government once the cap was reached.
But Redwood said that someone in care for four years in the southeast of England could still end up paying £149,000 under the Dilnot scheme, compared with £170,000 today. This is made up of both accommodation costs, which Dilnot wanted to cap at between £7,000 and £10,000 annually, and additional fees if a more expensive package than the local authority rate were chosen.
Redwood also said that it was unlikely that an insurance market would develop to meet the initial costs once the cap is in place. This type of insurance had been tried before in the UK, but failed to take off, he said. At the end of 2010, the last provider of these products left the market citing lack of demand, leaving only 36,000 policies still in force.
Instead of the Dilnot proposals, the coalition should spend any extra money on more choice and better quality of care for those who need it, Redwood said.
However, responding to the report, a Department of Health spokesman said: ‘It is misguided to say that the Dilnot commission's model is about protecting inheritances. It is about helping to remove the fear and uncertainty caused by the risk of very high care costs that people currently cannot insure themselves against. The principles of the Dilnot commission's model are the right thing to do if a way to pay for it can be found.
‘We will be looking at the affordability of funding reform options consistent with Dilnot principles, working with stakeholders. We will consider this, alongside other priorities, as part of our final decision at the Spending Review.’
The NHS Confederation said that it was ‘extremely encouraged’ that the government plans to broadly implement the Dilnot recommendations.
Confederation deputy policy director Jo Webber said: ‘Our current model of social care is broken and we desperately need a long-term, sustainable resolution if we are to avoid further detrimental impact on local government and NHS services. As part of this we need firm, affordable and coherent decisions about funding.
‘The country cannot afford to pick up the pieces of a broken social care system. We need to address this issue now or risk paying the price further down the line.’
