British PM Burnham to set out first steps on social care in speech

LONDON - British Prime Minister Andy Burnham will on July 29 pledge to overhaul the adult social care system, offering to work with other parties to better fund a service that can cost families hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Burnham became prime minister last week, and has enjoyed a bounce in the governing Labour Party’s poll ratings after announcing steps to reduce the cost of living.

But his pledge to “grasp the nettle” on reforming the system for caring for older and disabled adults carries political risk, as he will need to set out how he plans to pay for any changes while sticking to his fiscal rules.

Successive governments have failed to reform adult social care, with previous proposals defeated by opposition parties who dubbed them a “dementia tax” or “death tax”, leaving the system underfunded.

Care homes are run by a range of providers, from private equity-owned chains to smaller family-owned businesses and charities.

Depending on the level of medical need and location, residents pay around £1,400 (S$2,400) a week privately, while local authorities are charged around £1,000 for similar care. How much the resident pays, and how much the state contributes, is determined by their level of wealth.

Burnham has said that unless the care sector is reformed, the state-run National Health Service could collapse because of how many people who could be cared for elsewhere end up in hospitals.

“For decades, governments have kicked this issue down the road because they’ve seen it as too risky, too difficult, and too complicated,” Burnham said in a statement ahead of a speech he was due to give on July 29.

“We have to find common ground and listen to others to find a way forward.”

Invite to leaders of other parties

Burnham first tried to reform social care funding when he was health minister under Gordon Brown’s premiership but faced political difficulties and ran out of time before Labour’s election loss in 2010.

The Times newspaper said on July 29 he wanted to stop private companies, especially those financed by private equity, from making large profits from social care. Private equity firms owned about one in eight for-profit care home beds in 2022.

Burnham’s office said he had invited the leaders of the opposition Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties to discuss the issue.

Unlike the NHS, social care in Britain is not free for most people. Access to state-funded social care for older people in England is means-tested and generally requires a high level of need.

Britain’s Institute for Fiscal Studies said in 2024 that due to tighter eligibility criteria, the number of older people receiving state-funded social care in England had fallen by 10 per cent over the past decade, despite an ageing population.

Around one in seven older people were likely to incur lifetime care costs of more than £100,000, it added.

The King’s Fund, a health think-tank, said English local authorities spent £34.5 billion on social care for disabled adults and older people in the 2024/25 financial year, up about 8 per cent from the year before and split roughly evenly between working-age adults and older people. REUTERS