Dementia Care

I share your concerns that the Government has not acted to fix social care. The Prime Minister gave a commitment in his first speech in Downing Street to “fix the crisis in social care” with a “clear plan”. Yet the Government’s agenda for the year ahead, set out in the Queen’s Speech in December, included no legislation on social care and provided no details for reform.

After a decade of cuts to local government, £7.7 billion has been taken out of adult social care budgets. As a
result, councils across the country are having to make difficult decisions about who receives care and too many people are left to cope without the support they need. It is also not right that some people are forced to sell their homes to pay for care.

I support long-term reform to increase access to social care, to help the 1.5 million people currently going without the support they need, while protecting people from high care costs.

As part of a wider commitment to establish a National Care Service, I support introducing free personal care
for all older people and extending this to working-age adults as soon as possible. This would more than double the number of people receiving state-funded care and stop people with dementia being treated unfairly by the care system by ensuring they receive the same care as those with other conditions.

More widely, I will press Ministers to invest in our social care workforce. Carers play a vital role in our society, yet they are often unappreciated and underpaid. A new National Care Service would raise standards of care by ending the use of zero-hour contracts, ensure that carers are paid a real living wage, end 15-minute care
visits, and improve access to training and development for care staff.

I will continue to press the Government to provide the much-needed investment for social care to give people with dementia the support they need.