For social care, it’s time for action, not words.
Decades of underfunding and lack of action have left social care in a shocking state. Currently, at least 2.6m people go without the care they need.
Yet when it works well, social care has a fantastic impact. It enables people to live the lives they choose: for example, to socialise, work and volunteer if they are working aged disabled adults; sustain their independence if they are older; and balance caring with other aspects of their lives if they are unpaid carers.
Real leadership and action from the next government is the only way that millions of older people, disabled people and their carers will get the support they need to live happy and fulfilling lives.
Politicians must act now to provide sustainable funding for care; remove charging for working-aged disabled adults; provide higher pay for care workers and more support for unpaid carers; and enable councils to reduce waiting lists for care assessments.
To Party Leaders: Show Us You Care. Promise that you will make change happen in the next Parliament, come up with sustainable funding and support the social care workforce. Millions of older and working aged disabled people and their carers desperately need a social care system that works, and a failure to act would be a betrayal.
