UK PM Burnham vows to reform social care system

LONDON - British Prime Minister Andy Burnham vowed in an interview aired on July 27 to overhaul the country’s social care system to ease pressure on the beleaguered National Health Service.

Unlike the publicly funded NHS, which is struggling with long waiting lists and stretched resources, social care for elderly and disabled people is largely privatised in Britain.

“Whatever political capital I have, I will put into fixing broken social care, and I would not want to leave office without having brought in the substantial change,” Burnham told the BBC in an interview one week after taking office.

Burnham, whose father has Alzheimer’s, has campaigned to fix the social care system for years, including as a health secretary under Gordon Brown between 2009 and 2010.

He had proposed the creation of a publicly funded National Care Service, which would be free at the point of use like the NHS, when he was health secretary, but those plans fell through.

“I will go as quickly as I can on the reform of social care,” said Burnham, adding that while bringing in a new system would “take time”, he still hoped to achieve “substantial change” while in office.

Currently, the system for home and residential care is means-tested, and local authorities who are responsible for providing the services are struggling to keep up with the demands of an ageing population.

The NHS’s chronic bed and staff shortages stem partly from its inability to discharge elderly and dependent patients who don’t have social care in place.

The Prime Minister also acknowledged the need to reduce Britain’s ballooning welfare Bill and suggested tightening conditions for accessing benefits to encourage people to return to work.

“It’s about changing the nature of the support and making some of the support conditional upon people taking opportunities that are presented in front of them,” said Burnham.

His predecessor Keir Starmer had attempted to reform the welfare system but was forced to scale back the changes after facing opposition from within his own party. AFP