MPs urge ‘political consensus’ on funding social care

The heads of three Commons committees have called on Prime Minister Theresa May to find a ‘political consensus’ on funding social care in England before 2020.

In a letter, signed by Clive Betts, chairman of the Communities and Local Government committee, Meg Hillier, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and her Dr Sarah Wollaston her health committee counterpart, the group called for a cross-party review to find a ‘sustainable way’ to fund rising social care costs.

The news comes as the Local Government Association (LGA) has estimated there will be a £2.6 billion funding gap in providing adult social care in England by 2020 - because of pressures from an ageing population, inflation and the cost of paying the National Living Wage.

The MPs said: "We also feel that the ongoing separation of health and social care is creating difficulties and avoidable barriers and inefficiencies. Any review should cover the two systems. We are calling for a new political consensus to take this forward."

The MPs' letter was welcomed by the LGA’s Izzi Seccombe, who maintained that local government leaders must be part of any review: "This is imperative to get a long-term, sustainable solution to the social care crisis that the most vulnerable people in our society deserve."

A spokeswoman for the government argued that it had ‘gone further to integrate health and social care than any [government] before it’.

They added: ”We have brought budgets together for the first time through the Better Care Fund and given the NHS an extra £10 billion per year by 2020/21 to fund its own plan to build a more responsive, modern health system."