Our Blueprint for Social Care

• A ‘root and branch’ overhaul of the way social care is planned and funded

• NHS health care and social care to be merged and managed either locally or nationally

• Extra funding for social care, funded by taxation or National Insurance

• A guarantee that people receiving publicly-funded care can receive it in their own home or close to where they live

• A minimum wage and career pathway for social care staff, on a par with their NHS equivalents

• A streamlining of the bureaucracy that slows overseas recruitment

• A commissioner for older people and those with Learning Disabilities in England

• A properly-costed national rate for care fees

• Dementia to be treated like other high profile, high priority illnesses, like cancer and heart disease

• A fixed percentage of GDP to be spent on social care

• A cap on social care costs, including ‘hotel’ charges

• Local Enterprise Partnerships to prioritise social care

• A national scheme to ensure people save for their own care, as they do for a pension

• A new model of social care delivery based on catchment areas – like GPs

• A social care loan scheme, like the ‘bounce back’ loans, to support care providers

• Social care businesses to be zero-rated for VAT so that they can claim it back, as other business sectors do

• CQC to have much greater powers to oversee all commissioning practises such as per minute billing and 15-minute visits

• Less duplication of inspection between CQC and local authorities/NHS

• Greater recognition of the role of the independent sector and utilisation of its expertise, via secondment for example, in the overall planning of social care in the UK

• A voice for social care providers on the integrated care boards

• Guaranteed equal partnership working on the new Integrated Care System Networks

• Giving providers and CQC greater flexibility in delivering services

• Providing incentives to care providers to diversify and invest in their services, like telemedicine, for example

• Allowing nurses and social care staff from overseas to work in the U.K. including lowering the salary cap

• More nurse training and bursaries to encourage recruitment and end the shortage of nurses

• Long term measures to integrate older and younger people in care settings and change the perception of the generations

• Investment in research and development into new models of social care delivery

• Funding to help upgrade older care homes to maintain a range of choice for the public and investment in domiciliary care

• Funding for leadership training