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    Why is Andy Burnham talking about fixing England’s social care system? | Social care

    onlyplanz_80y6mtBy onlyplanz_80y6mtJune 6, 2026004 Mins Read
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    Why is Andy Burnham talking about fixing England’s social care system? | Social care
    In some cases, people end up selling their homes and using their entire life savings to fund care in their later years. Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA
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    Andy Burnham has signalled he would overhaul England’s social care system this year if he became prime minister, the biggest indication yet of what his main priorities would be.

    Work is already under way on updating the social care system under Keir Starmer, but Burnham has suggested he would seek more radical and urgent change.

    He is not the first to have made such a claim, with several former Labour and Conservative prime ministers attempting to tackle the complex issue of the social care crisis in England – so what are the key issues and how much could they cost to fix?

    What is wrong with social care in the UK?

    The adult social care sector in England has been in crisis for decades, with local authorities struggling to meet the rising costs and a permanent staffing shortage making it difficult to keep up with the growing demand.

    There were 2m new requests for publicly funded social care in 2024-25, up from 1.8m in 2015-16, and a growing number of these requests came from working-age adults – a 31% increase – rather than elderly people.

    Local authorities are statutorily required to provide care, but funding cuts by central government over the past decade have squeezed their budgets and many are struggling to keep up.

    Successive governments over the past 30 years have all agreed the system needs a complete overhaul, with proposals ranging from a lifetime cap on care costs to integrating social care into the NHS, but the political and financial cost of fixing it has meant little change has actually happened.

    Who pays for it?

    The key issue at the heart of the social care crisis is who pays for it. Social care is not part of the NHS and is instead administered by councils. As well as care for elderly people, a big portion of their social care budgets goes to younger adults with learning disabilities, physical disabilities or mental health conditions.

    Access to publicly funded social care is means- and needs-tested, and people with assets have to pay for their own care. In some cases, people end up selling their homes and using their entire life savings to fund care in their later years.

    With councils increasingly struggling to pay for their own care homes, private companies have filled the void – but with local authorities able to afford only cheap rates, a two-tier market has materialised in which self-funders are overcharged to subsidise this.

    Unpaid carers, who provide care worth £184bn a year in what has been described as the “equivalent to a second NHS”, arguably bear the highest cost from failures to improve the system.

    What is the government doing about it?

    Labour promised the creation of a national care service in its manifesto and has asked the cross-bench peer Louise Casey to undertake an independent review into how best to achieve this.

    The Casey commission is being carried out on a phased long-term basis, with a first report due this year. The full review is not expected until 2028 and full implementation is estimated to take up to 2036. Charities and social care directors have criticised the timeline for being too long and not reflecting the urgency of the situation.

    In a March 2026 speech, Lady Casey gave her initial diagnosis of the system, describing social care as held together by “add-ons, workarounds, sticking plasters and glue”. She also said the country faced a “moment of reckoning” over its failure to effectively meet the needs of its ageing population, and the rising numbers of people with chronic conditions such as dementia and Alzheimer’s.

    How much will it cost to fix the social care system?

    The government spends about £32bn a year on adult social care through local authorities, which are overspending on their care budgets and making cuts elsewhere to keep up. Thinktanks have estimated it would cost billions just to fix the basics and put local authorities on a more stable footing.

    The government is also introducing a fair pay agreement for care workers to establish minimum pay, sick pay and working conditions, in the hopes of solving the staffing crisis and filling the more than 100,000 vacancies in the sector.

    This is being backed by £500m in government funding but the Local Government Association has said this money is not enough to cover all costs, and the policy is likely to put further pressure on already stretched council budgets.

    Full structural reform, such as capping how much an individual has to pay for their care or creating an NHS-style model in which most social care is free (similar to in Scotland), is likely to cost much more. Estimates vary but analysis by the Institute for Public Policy Research suggested it could cost £36bn a year by 2030.

    This would probably need to be funded through an increase in national insurance contributions or other taxes, which could prove politically and publicly contentious.

    Andy Burnham Care Englands Fixing Social System Talking
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