Social Care: reform of funding & delivery

In 2006 The King’s Fund published Securing Good Care for Older People – a review of social care spending requirements for older people over the next 20 years – led by Sir Derek Wanless. This concluded that  a 'partnership' model of funding (where government and individuals share the costs of care) would offer the best, fairest and most cost-effective way of delivering a minimum level of care to people that they could top-up from their own resources.

The King’s Fund followed this in 2007 by establishing Caring Choices, a coalition of 15 organisations drawn from across the long-term care sector, that sought to engage the public in debate about what care should be provided and how it should be funded in the future.

Caring Choices published a report in 2008, The Future of Care Funding, saying there was ‘almost no support’ for the present system of means-tested funding and significant levels of support for some kind of ‘partnership’ model of funding.

Current arrangements for the funding and delivery of social care services are described in The King’s Fund briefing Funding adult social care in England (125 kb) .

The previous government had begun a two-stage transformation strategy led by two key publications: Putting People First – a cross-government strategy with local government and voluntary sector partners to transform the delivery of care through a three-year change programme, supported by a grant to councils of £512 million; and, to shape the future of the system, a Green Paper that sets out options for the future funding and delivery of care and support.