'Be bold' and give NHS cash to social care, Yorkshire expert tells Andy Burnham

The new Prime Minister said reforming social care was one of his key long-term goals in No10, describing the current state of affairs as a “major dereliction of public duty”.

Andy Burnham has to “be bold and shift money from the NHS into social care” now to give the cash-strapped sector some breathing space, a Yorkshire care leader has said.

The new Prime Minister said reforming social care was one of his key long-term goals in No10, describing the current state of affairs as a “major dereliction of public duty”.

In a speech yesterday, Mr Burnham said: “This is huge for me. I know this will require me to put what political capital I have on the table and it could wear down that political capital in some ways.

“But I’m prepared to do it. I’m prepared to do it because this has gone on too long. The risks of failing to act are too great.”

While Mr Burnham outlined his vision, he did not get into specifics around funding models or policy changes.

He asked Baroness Louise Casey to conclude her commission on adult social care by this time next year, to try and speed up the reform process.

But Mike Padgham, chair of North Yorkshire’s Independent Care Group, who runs Saint Cecilia’s Care Home, in Scarborough, said the new Prime Minister should act before Baroness Casey’s commission has finished.

“I think they could shift some money from the health service budget into social care at the stroke of a pen,” he said.

“There are a lot of people in hospital that don’t need to be there.

“They can’t go into the social care system because there isn’t capacity, or local authority budgets are stretched.

“That’s unnecessary expense and could be solved if funding was moved into the community, so people could be cared for in their own home.”

Mr Burnham indicated that savings to the NHS from fixing issues around social care could help fund a reformed system.

He said it costs the NHS around £2.5bn a year to have people kept in hospital even though they are medically fit to leave because there is no suitable care available in the community.

He said “I think we owe it to the public before we talk about tax rises” to “do more with what you’ve got”.

But he said that “some of what we want to do in the fuller sense will require difficult, difficult decisions” and “we will be honest with people about those”.

Mr Padgham has seen eight prime ministers before Mr Burnham, stretching all the way back to Sir Tony Blair, talk about the need to reform social care.

Boris Johnson made the commitment even earlier than the new Prime Minister, in his first speech outside No10.

Yet reforms have been stymied due to a lack of political appetite.

“You have to have a bit of cynicism in your head,” Mr Padgham added.

“But I have to give him the benefit of the doubt at the moment as he’s only been in the job a few days.”

Shipley MP Anna Dixon, who first worked with Mr Burnham on plans to bring in a national care service under Gordon Brown, praised the Prime Minister for committing to work on social care.

“He is right that this issue has been ducked for far too long by successive governments,” she said.

“The human cost of this inaction is enormous, and whether it is overstretched carers, families exhausting their savings, or older people stuck in hospital beds, it is visible in every community across the country.”