The UK government should remove the funding barrier between the NHS and social care by introducing new tax measures to increase the provision of free care, according to a new report by the Policy Exchange thinktank.
The ‘Ending the divide - implications of Covid-19 for the government’s health and social care agenda’ report recommends the crisis should be used to reform the sector to deliver improvements.
“Seventy years after the founding of the NHS, the government should use the Covid-19 crisis to remove the barrier between the NHS and social care,” wrote author and Policy Exchange social care lead Richard Sloggett.
“Like the NHS it should introduce new measures in the tax system to fund it largely free at the point of use for those older and working age people who require long-term chronic care. This will address a funding divide which no longer makes sense and would generate a positive legacy from this terrible virus,” he added.
Other recommendations include that temporary NHS hospitals should be used to support managing NHS and social care demand and flow, particularly as use as step down facilities for patients being discharged from hospital.
In addition, digital gains made through the crisis should be locked in through a ‘digital lock-in strategy’.
The report also argues that cross-party talks and a Conservative manifesto pledge that nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it must now be strengthened.
In response, Local Government Association community wellbeing board chairman Ian Hudspeth said the report echoed its own calls for social care to be on an equal footing with the NHS.
“Social care as a whole has been desperately underfunded for decades and we have been consistently calling for a cross-party consensus on the future of care and how we pay for it, long before the coronavirus crisis,” he added.
“People of all ages should be able to live the lives they want to lead and we are pleased the government previously announced it was to begin cross-party talks, as part of finding a long-term, sustainable solution for adult social care.”
