Boris Johnson News – Inquiry to revisit long-term funding needs of social care in wake of Covid-19

The Housing, Communities, and Local Government (HCLG) Committee is calling for evidence to help inform its new investigation into the likely legacy of the coronavirus pandemic in adult social care.

“Our new inquiry sets out to understand how Covid-19 has placed further stress on an already challenging environment”

Clive Betts

The committee will consider how the pandemic has “placed further stress on an already challenging environment”, recognising the additional costs such as on personal protective equipment, cleaning and staffing.

It will build on the work that it carried out in 2018 as part of a joint inquiry with the Health and Social Care Committee.

That inquiry had called for the establishment of a parliamentary commission to develop a long-term funding solution for the adult social care sector.

At the start of his term as prime minister, Boris Johnson had promised to publish a social care reform strategy in 2020.

In March last year, health and social care secretary Matt Hancock began an engagement exercise with MPs and peers about their views on the future of adult social care, including how it is funding, in a bid to come to a cross-party consensus on a reform plan. However, the results of this work have yet to emerge.

Launching the inquiry, HCLG committee chair Clive Betts said: “The challenge of finding a long-term solution to the financial pressures on the adult social care system is one of the toughest questions we will have to face in the coming years.

“We have seen year on year the demand on services increasing, while local authority budgets have been stretched more and more.”

He stressed there must be a “solution that provides a financial plan for decades, not just months”.

“It is disappointing that yet more discussions are needed to bring the prime minister’s promise to address social care to fruition”

Martin Green

Mr Betts added: “Our new inquiry sets out to understand how Covid-19 has placed further stress on an already challenging environment, and the likely long-term consequences for adult social care.

“Given the likely long-term financial implications of the pandemic on society as a whole, we will also reconsider how we can provide the necessary funding boost fairly and look at how we can support the sector to innovate in how it provides care.”

Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, welcomed the news of the inquiry but was frustrated that “yet more discussions” were needed to see the prime minister deliver on his promise for reform.

“As the largest representative body for independent providers of adult social care, Care England is supportive of any measures to address the long-term funding of adult social care and the clout of the HCLG committee is certainly welcome, however it is disappointing that yet more discussions are needed to bring the prime minister’s promise to address social care to fruition.”

The deadline for submissions to the inquiry is 15 April 2021.