Has anyone on CareSpace contributed to the government's six month "national debate" on the future funding of adult care, which will form the basis of a green paper next year? Here's a link:

http://www.careandsupport.direct.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/press-notice-for-launch.pdf 

 If you have, what did you say was needed? If you haven't, have you got any views?

I was at one of the regional meetings the government is holding on the future funding of care today - attended by London social care managers and frontline staff from across all sectors, users and carers.

It was a really interesting day with lots of good discussion about how the care and support needs of a bigger - and more expectant - population of service users could be met in a way that was just, fair and affordable. 

Generally there appeared to be very strong support for state - as opposed to individual or familial - funding. However, the message from Ivan Lewis was that taxpayers - as opposed to the social care community - would be highly reluctant to go for this.

I was just wondering if there were people in social care who were more up for private funding - or whether people think the public are more up for a collectivist solution than the government assume.

 I'd be interested to know if Wanless was referred to much in the proceedings. I'm surprised it wasn't raised much in the media when the new ways of funding care was re-introduced a couple of months back as there seemed to be a lot of interesting proposals and I'm not sure if they've fallen by the wayside or not. 

I think there has to be some kind of joint funding in the future. The costs are too high and the government has a distaste for increased taxation. Of course, I'd rather it wasn't necessary but I can't realistically see a government raising taxes to a level high enough to meet need. 

I think the agenda of trying to protect the middle classes' inheritance is a red herring too. If people can afford to pay then why shouldn't they? 

I think the expectations of the generations growing older needs to change from that of a cradle to grave welfare state where you pay your tax and national insurance and expect a pay-back to a model of co-payment. 

It's not nice and of course, I'd love the care that is needed to be funded entirely but it's not realistic to have that expectation anymore. 

cb:

I think the expectations of the generations growing older needs to change from that of a cradle to grave welfare state where you pay your tax and national insurance and expect a pay-back to a model of co-payment.

The other issue apart from payment is the type of service model we want. Is the state only going to provide services for those "most in need", however that is designed, or do we want a "universal model" where everyone is entitled to a level of services based on a level of need (such as mobility problems) but where we then have a partnership when it comes to paying for these services. That is the means testing does not decide who receives care, it decides how payment of that care is divided up. The individual's contribution could come from some form of social insurance for example.

This then takes us back to whether people would be willing to pay what may be perceived as more tax. Mithran tells us Ivan Lewis doesn't believe the public will go for that but it is a case of the money will have to come out of all our pockets whether that is tax, social insurance, private insurance or our savings. We need to work out the most cost-effective approach and there needs to be a wide education process.

 A Community Care we will be looking at these issues in detail in the coming months and I will be very keen to hear everyone's views.

Bronagh 

Strange, isn't it, that the Government always has money to fight new wars, replace Trident, introduce ID cards, and so on, but never has money to fund the care of people who sacrificed so much during and immediately after the last world war? It is pure nonsense to say that increasing taxes to pay for care is a "red line in the sand"; this is one of the very few issues that the public has indicated it is willing to fund from the public purse.

Hopefully the new Tory government will show more courage on care funding than the dying Labour administration has shown during its 11 years in office.