Calling social care levy 'death tax' is not helpful, University of Hull academic says

Andy Burnham confirmed that 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”.

Labelling a social care levy as a “death tax” is not helpful, a University of Hull professor has said, explaining that the UK has an “obligation” to think about funding the under-fire sector.

Professor Fliss Murtagh is one of the UK's leading experts in palliative and end-of-life care, and has advised MPs, peers and policy makers across the country.

She spoke to The Yorkshire Post after Andy Burnham confirmed that 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”.

Earlier this week, he 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.

Prof Murtagh, director of the Wolfson Palliative Care Research Centre at the University of Hull, said the Government “must tackle this as a system-wide challenge with a system-wide solution”.

“If you change social care and start to provide a national care service, you have to be clear that that will then impact on the health system,” she said.

“If we look at the health system and the formal healthcare costs, as Andy Burnham has stated, a lot of people get caught in A&E, they get admitted some of the time when admission is not necessary and it’s happened because there’s been a crisis at home, where the family are trying to manage.

“If they don’t get the support at home, they then end up at casualty and being admitted. If you can change to a national care service that’s well integrated, then you could change the use of acute care beds.”

Prof Murtagh said that of the 30m unplanned hospital bed days every year, around a third are for people in the last year of their life.

Prof Murtagh said that these patients are the “most ill for whom perhaps curative interventions are not that helpful”, adding: “The acute hospital is not always the best place for them.”

“They are the people who Andy Burnham refers to as stuck in the system, because there is not the social care to support them being discharged back out of hospital.”

Prof Murtagh also urged people not to refer to any sort of social care levy as a “death tax”.

Mr Burnham previously indicated he would support a flat 10 per cent rate on estates to replace inheritance tax and fund a national care service.

The Government has indicated it is not looking at this at the current time, and would be sticking to Labour’s manifesto commitments.

Prof Murtagh added: “It’s not a death tax, it’s actually compassionate care that we’re trying to fund.

“If we as a society actually care about the people that are in our families and make sure they do get the care that they need.

“We have to think of it as part of the care people really need, and we have an obligation to think about how we fund that.”