Andy Burnham Wants to Fix Social Care: What Are the Options?

During a speech at a care home on Wednesday, Andy Burnham announced that cross-party talks involving the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats would commence shortly. He also stated that he had requested Baroness Casey, who is conducting a review of social care, to bring forward her report by a year, with recommendations now set to be delivered in 2027. He confirmed that her review will also examine how to fund any resulting reforms.

BBC Verify has examined four different approaches to reform and evaluated their potential costs. Many individuals face exceptionally high expenses for care at the end of their lives, with estimates indicating that roughly one in seven people aged 65 and over incur lifetime care costs surpassing £100,000.

Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event

The first proposal involves capping these expenses, with the government covering bills exceeding a specific cash threshold. Back in 2011, a commission led by economist Andrew Dilnot proposed a lifetime cap of £35,000, estimating annual costs between £1.3bn and £2.2bn, figures that would now be higher due to inflation and an aging population. Although David Cameron's coalition government accepted the recommendations, the implementation was delayed to 2020 following the 2015 election due to public finance pressures. In 2017, Theresa May's manifesto proposed factoring home values into means testing without a lifetime cap, a plan critics dubbed a dementia tax before it was eventually dropped.

An alternative approach is to significantly raise the means test threshold. Currently in England, individuals qualify for local authority financial support in residential care if their total assets and home are worth less than £23,250. In 2021, Boris Johnson's government planned to raise this threshold to £100,000 at an annual cost of £1.8bn over three years, though this was later scrapped by successors wanting to keep taxes down.