Disagree, there are private firms out there that are currently making 15p per hour profit. Would hardly describe that as hefty profit.

Without the private firms there would hardly be a service.

If the concern is profit made by private companies then local councils should take on the responsibility. Without doubt that would be more expensive.

This is the absolute norm, there is this generalisation that children place their parents into care homes at the cost of the tax payers when the truth is that pensioners total wealth will then be used to fund their care (up to £400 a week).

This very quickly drains any potential inheritance.

I mean that we all accept the new tax, regardless of whether we use the social care system or not. It's a form of insurance.

As I said in another post though - this is really just a question of reversing the tax cuts over the last 6 years. If we took away some of the tax free allowance that everyone gets (including people on £100k a year), put corporation tax back up to a non-tax haven level, reversed the proposed reductions in inheritance tax threshold, reversed capital gains tax cuts etc etc we'd get back to where we need to be.

Sorry but how is that fair? I know that my house will pay for mine and my partner's care whenever the time comes that we need it. We don't have children to leave the house to so why should we made to pay an "insurance" that we will never need, whereas others will be able to benefit from receiving their parents' house as their parents' care is paid for by everybody paying the "insurance".

Should that ever happen then I will make damn sure that the house will be sold and the proceeds split between a number of charities of our choosing.

There is a wider problem and I don't know the answer to it. My Dad at 86 had collapsed. He'd got a water infection / chest infection and had a mild TIA a decade before. They decided to admit him just to check him over. On ward at 7am decided at 3pm he could go home. He told them he would come to me. In years gone by that would have been that. No - he had to have a full check. Altzeimers / mobility. I have stairs so he had to walk up and down stairs in hospital. He didn't leave until 8pm. Dad was getting irritated. I'm like a bloody prisoner! Lol.

Of course, the private sector are our saviours!

(Despite all the evidence to the contrary)

Comedy bit:

"...and even if people wanted to lose their jobs to pay for more health spending..."

Social care is means tested. The individual is allowed to have just over 23K in savings (also includes the value of their property if they own one) before they have to pay for their care. Worst case scenario is the inheritance is 23K.

Private firms are closing down.

New figures show that in the last three years, two care homes have closed for each one that opened in England.

Charities raised concerns that vulnerable residents are being left live in increasingly impersonal surroundings, with a growth in “care warehouses” twice the size of the institutions they have replaced.

The new analysis shows that since 2011, an average of 204 care homes a year have closed in England, while just 103 a year have opened.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/heal...arehouses.html

Listening to radio 4 at lunchtime. Providers are handing their contracts back as they can't fulfil them. The national living wage means that they can't provide the care for monies they are being given.

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...pUOKhmc4rOr1IQ. Biggest not-profit provider pulls out of home care market

I am quite happy to care for my disabled husband. However, it would be nice to have some financial help towards adapting our home to meet his needs. We have already paid for some adaptations but cannot afford the major changes he now needs such as a through floor lift.

We have applied for a Disabled Facilities Grant and although my husband meets all the criteria as regards his disability, because I work 14 hours a week we are entitled to nothing towards the cost.

If I end up in a care home I would rather be looked after by people with proper qualifications being paid proper money. Not by people so desperate that they will do any job just to earn a few quid.

That is one of the failures of the system. You should get all the help that you need including full costs of any adaptations. You are saving the country a fortune.

The worst thing is that no one call say that we weren't warned about this. I remember sitting in my geography lesson as a 14 year old being told about the 'age bomb' that was going to go off when baby boomers started retiring. We all knew that these days were going to come - if we don't rise to meet the challenge then that will be the end of any idea that the UK is a compassionate country.

Something has to be done but I would only be prepared to pay extra taxes if something was done to reign in the council pension gravy train.
Consider the fact that by 2020 some councils will be putting 35p in every pound of council tax collected towards gold plated pension funds.

The problem is essentially a simple one of supply and demand. People are living longer and need support to stay in their homes or receive more specialist care. So there are employment prospects available on a huge scale for large numbers of properly trained and supervised health and social care providers. The impetus for establishing and controlling this MUST come from central government and there is the need for a new government department to do it. The government must not be allowed to just devolve it to local authorities, increase council taxes and turn away from the problem.

Certainly, finance is a big challenge. I think social care is probably best funded part through central taxation and part by some sort of means-tested contribution, but the profit-making element should be entirely removed. It just doesn't work. Sadly, I see no sign of the government having the slightest interest in taking a lead on this. They are just content to carry on with the status quo and the occasional sticking plaster. Perhaps they're secretly hoping for another flue-like pandemic which would eliminate the problem at source.

Social care and its providers has been the responsibility of local governments for a very long time.
It is funded by central government as one of the largest discretionary spend.
To remove all private providers and the service to be provided "in house" is a massive undertaking, and will cost considerably more per person.
It would not just need a department in central government, but an additional department for each local government just to rota care staff.

Agreed - but it comes back to an issue of accountability for local government. Frankly the only things that people care about in local politics are 1. how much council tax am I paying and 2. when are you collecting my bins and 3. when are you filing in the pot holes. There is so much pressure on councilors to give into populist pressure to freeze council tax or not cut back on highly visible services that making small cuts to social and children care often seems like the politically sensible move.

Central government needs to set national targets and standards for social care that councils can't ignore.

Do we now need a social care tax (SCT) to fund a national care service (NCS)?

Perhaps it should be funded from the £350 million a week that Gove, Boris and Cummings promised that would be instantly available for the NHS if everyone voted Leave?

The moment the councils stopped having to actually supply care themselves most jumped on it and pretty much around 12-15 years ago basically saw that at the time they could get the same work for about 1/2 the cost at the time and pretty much all the council owned care homes were sold off and home care privatized.

Back then anything owned by a council was an asset and if possible to be sold on to help reduce the states burden to fund the councils and a lot of those care homes were big places with high value and thus were sold off ASAP.

Its been a race to the bottom to keep reducing costs but there comes a point where it cannot go any lower and the private companies will start returning the contracts for care to the councils but after a decade or more that have not the staff/experience or the buildings etc just to be able to pick up the strain.

Theres been care companies that have gone bump on a Sunday at like 11pm due to not getting any funding and luckily some other company has taken over so theres not been much change in care to the person but there will come a point where it'll go tits up and theres going to be a lot of people who need care in all forms finding that the carers are not turning up since they won't get paid.

How many actually do the job long term ?

You make good points, but I do not see any sense ir fairnesst in continuing to fund avaricious private care providers who exploit their workers and those they are supposed to care for. It is not good enough for the government to pass the buck to local authorities and authorise the raising of yet more taxes to be paid out to the private sector. The big problem of social care requires strategic planning not temporary sticking plasters.

Because looking after your family at that point becomes a lottery.

if Granny dies quickly the family inherit the house, and money and that family find it has money for the grandchildren's university fees, and pensions, and house deposits. Result - wealth passes down the generations and that family does well.

Granny lingers for 10 years, needing major care, and that family is left with nothing .

Worse if Granny avoided work , relied on state housing, and drank all her money and has nothing left to leave , the state picks up all the bill for her. The irresponisble do as well as those who saved to benefit their families.

Even worse , if the children of that family spend their time and money looking after granny - when she dies, they are not only inheritance free, but potentially sometimes homeless . The , child, carer often has their eggs placed in the family home basket to make up for what they can't earn caring.

Basically, sufferers buying their own care doesn't work. The burden either needs sharing around with some sort of insurance - whereby the risks are shared, or muddle on, or you can't look after granny.

Government won't tackle that though - because taxes just produce less economic activity and taxes, living standards are not growing enough anyway, and there's already too little money for everything else too.

The aging thing is frightening. i just looked at my local proposed health care changes in the local STP. They now have 3000 hospital beds. They are trying to cut this to 2800. The demand - from population increases and increasing numbers of the over 65s - they think raises the need to 3600 beds by 2021.

However, the budget only works if they cut to 2600 beds - less than now - not 20% more to meet demand.

And how do they do this - they cut elective surgery by 17%, put a limit of 10 days on in hospital care, and try and treat more people in the community before they need hospital.

Basically, you can't meet demand rising by 20% when the economy is growing by about 7% in the same timescale. Social care essentially has the same problem.

That'll never work. They'd have to discharge people who are in comas and stuff.