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A package of reforms to tackle England’s struggling social care system “will be doomed to failure” unless the government presents a robust financial case for changing a “broken” system, a cross-party group of MPs has said.
The warning from the House of Commons health and social care committee on Monday follows the launch of an independent state-commissioned review by Baroness Louise Casey into the crisis facing adult social care.
MPs said a lack of official data on how the current system worked meant ministers were unaware of the potential financial benefits of a reformed model, and could not properly assess which changes would result in the highest returns.
The MPs called on ministers to commission research to fully quantify the cost of continued inaction, including how delayed discharges from hospitals to social care settings are costing the NHS.
“Without this we fear that the reforms that come out of the Casey Commission will be doomed to failure, leaving everyone continuing to suffer under the current unsustainable system”, they said in a report.
The current system was not meeting the needs of the public, leaving government and taxpayers with an annual £32bn bill “for a broken system” that was placing further strains on already squeezed local authority budgets, they added.
Initiatives by successive governments have sought to improve how the social care system is funded but have met with public backlash.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer inherited plans from the previous Conservative government to cap the amount individuals contribute towards their own care costs, but England’s largest councils last summer warned of a £30bn “black hole” in funding for the proposals.
At the end of July last year, chancellor Rachel Reeves announced that the plans would not be implemented, saving the £1bn they would have cost in 2025-26.
“Successive governments have shied away from implementing meaningful reforms to the social care system”, said Layla Moran, Liberal Democrat MP and committee chair. “But this is an active choice that is no longer tenable. We are living with a broken social care system.
“It is not providing adequate care to the people who need it, it is creating ever increasing costs for local authorities and the NHS, and it is putting unsustainable pressure on unpaid carers,” she added, with the report finding they provided care worth £184bn a year, “equivalent to a second NHS”.
Casey’s initial recommendations will be published in mid-2026, but elements of the long-awaited package of reform might not be rolled out for a decade.
Stephen Kinnock, minister of state for care, said: “Far from inaction, this government has hit the ground running on social care. We inherited a social care system in crisis and took immediate action.”
He added that work was already under way to reform adult social care, including a £3.7bn funding boost to support health authorities, as well as money for an extra 15,000 home adaptations for disabled people.
“A lot has been done, but we know there is so much more to do and deep reform is needed”, he added.
