Does No. 10 really have a plan for social care?

Is the government ever going to reform social care? After a lengthy row between No. 10 and the Treasury, the Queen’s speech does include a promise that ‘proposals on social care reform will be brought forward.’ The stand-off wasn’t just over how much those proposals will cost, but the design itself. Perhaps this is why the briefing accompanying the speech is so very light on what the government plans to do.

All we know is that the Health and Care Bill ‘will include provisions to improve the oversight of how social care is commissioned and delivered, and facilitate greater integration between health and care services by placing Integrated Care Systems on a statutory footing across the UK, putting more power and autonomy in the hands of local systems.’ This isn’t a surprise: this NHS-related legislation has been on the cards for a while.

But when it comes to the detail of reform for the funding of social care provision, there is still no more detail than ‘the government is committed to improving the adult social care system and will bring forward proposals in 2021.’