The UK Prime Minister has promised to overhaul funding for the aged care in the wake of COVID – suggesting that a system could be established to pool aged care costs.
In a keynote address at the Conservative Party virtual conference, Mr Johnson stated: “We will fix the injustice of care home funding. We will care for the carers as they care for us.”
“We will do what all governments have shirked for decades,” he went on.
“We will fix the injustice of care home funding, bringing the magic of averages to the rescue of millions.”
“COVID has shone a spotlight on the difficulties of that sector in all parts of the UK, and to build back better we must respond. Care for the carers as they care for us.”
Will the Prime Minister deliver however?
On his first day in office as Prime Minister in July last year, Mr Johnson also swore: “We will fix the crisis in social care once and for all”, saying it was “time to change the record.”
But the Government has come under fire for making little progress on this promise with over 25,000 excess deaths in aged care homes this year during the pandemic, which have been in part attributed to the lack of long-term policy for the sector.
There was also confusion about what Mr Johnson meant by the phrase ‘magic of averages’.
The wording was reportedly used by wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill in reference to insurance – so there is now speculation that this would mean setting up a social insurance-style system to pay for aged care costs.
Simon Bottery, a senior fellow for social care at UK independent think tank The King’s Fund, tweeted in response to the speech:
“I’d guess ‘bringing the magic of averages to the rescue of millions’ means pooling people’s social care costs. But to what extent? The phrase could apply equally to a full-blown social insurance system, free personal care at home or a cap on care costs.”
However, Downing Street has yet to confirm further details, except to state that older Britons should not have to sell the family home to pay for care.
Watch this space then.
