Fixing social care is key to the future of the NHS

On 12 September, The Spectator hosted a round-table dinner, sponsored by Bupa, to discuss the future of healthcare in Britain, involving MPs and practitioners. This is a summary of the evening’s discussion.

We are forever being told that the health and social care system is in crisis thanks to government ‘cuts’. The trouble is that political parties which try to be honest about the rising cost of healthcare, and come up with solutions as to how we will fund it, tend to be given a rough reception – as the Conservatives discovered when they launched their manifesto for this year’s election, which saw their proposals for social care funding damned as ‘dementia tax’.

So what would a financially sustainable health and social care system look like, and how do we get there? The charge that the NHS is crumbling due to ‘cuts’ is not true. Actually, the NHS has seen its budget rise steadily in recent years, from £111.7