Care and Support Alliance formed to lobby on adult care reform

Thirty care charities and think-tanks have come together to try and keep adult care funding reform on the political agenda, amid concerns over the delay to the publication of the long-awaited green paper on the issue.

The Care and Support Alliance brings together charities including Carers UK, Mencap, Rethink, Scope and the Alzheimer’s Society and think-tanks such as the King’s Fund and Resolution Foundation.

Carers UK chief executive Imelda Redmond said the purpose of the coalition was to ensure the government makes a high priority of adult care reform and to help generate a national debate on the issue in the wake of the green paper.

Green paper’s publication has slipped

However, the publication of the paper has slipped repeatedly. It was originally due out early in 2009, before being put back to June.

Last month, health secretary Andy Burnham said it would be published in “early July“, however The Guardian reported this week that the green paper may not make it out before the parliamentary summer recess, on 21 July, putting publication back until October.

Redmond said reform was crucial to address current levels of under-funding, the postcode lottery in access to care and future demographic pressures.

Risks that issue will be ‘lost’

But she warned: “In the current economic climate, there is a very real risk that these issues will be lost, postponed or judged too costly to confront. This would simply not be acceptable. Reform of social care must be a political priority now, at the next election and beyond.”

The Care and Support Alliance is the third coalition to be set up to lobby and raise a public debate on this issue in recent years. The Caring Choices coalition of 15 organisations – including a number involved in the Care and Support Alliance – was formed in May 2007 – while Carers UK came together with Counsel and Care and Help the Aged in January 2008 to form the Right care, Right deal alliance.

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