In the four years since I was elected to represent Brentwood and Ongar in Parliament I have received a small but steady number of emails from constituents whose loved ones need more care to enable them to live safely, either in their homes or within a care home.
The costs of doing either are never cheap, and many families realise they face months and years of paying for care, or relying on the local adult care team to assist with funding.
The Covid-19 pandemic has focused much of our attention on the care system as well as the NHS and the Government has decided it is time to address the problems in social care which successive governments have ducked for decades.
As the Prime Minister said last week in Parliament, “You can’t fix the Covid backlogs without giving the NHS the money it needs. You can’t fix the NHS without fixing social care, you can’t fix social care without removing the fear of losing everything to pay for it, and you can’t fix health and social care without long-term reform.”
My election pledges did not include raising taxes, and I know my colleagues in the Treasury viewed the recent decision to introduce a new, UK-wide 1.25 per cent Health and Social Care Levy based on National Insurance Contributions was a difficult but necessary one.
I take heart in the promise the money raised by the Levy will help to tackle NHS backlogs by providing an extra 9 million checks, scans, and operations, and increasing NHS capacity to 110 per cent of its pre-pandemic levels by 2023-24. Adult social care will be reformed with a lifetime cost cap of £86,000, covering all care costs for anyone with assets under £20,000, and increasing the threshold above which state support stops to £100,000.
My hope is this will mean fewer families have to contact me in the future, fearful about the cost of varying for an elderly or frail loved one, and hardworking people will know they have something to leave their children for their future.
