Liz Truss’ plan to rescue social care sector if she wins Tory leadership race receives lukewarm response from campaigners
- Liz Truss announced she would divert £13billion from the NHS to social care
- The Tory leadership frontrunner’s plans were cautiously welcomed by charities
- She said: ‘People in beds in he NHS who would be better off in social care beds’
Social care campaigners yesterday welcomed plans by Liz Truss to put billions of pounds into the struggling sector.
In a surprise move, the Tory leadership frontrunner said she would divert £13billion raised by the health and social care levy from the NHS to social care.
She told a hustings in Birmingham: ‘People are in beds in the NHS who would be better off in social care beds. Put the money into social care, free up more space in the NHS and empower the front line in the NHS.’
Tory leadership front runner Liz Truss told a hustings in Birmingham that she would divert £13billion raised by the health and social care levy from the NHS to social care
Age UK gave the move a cautious welcome, but warned it must not undermine efforts to tackle NHS backlogs. Director Caroline Abrahams said: ‘Budgets are overstretched as it is. If Miss Truss wins the contest we will await further details with great interest.’
Marco Longhi, a Tory member of the Commons health and social care committee, said: ‘There are a lot of people who end up stuck in hospital who would rather be cared for at home if the right care package was available to them.
‘No one wants to be in hospital when they don’t need to be.
‘We have seen this summer how hospitals have been unable to admit new patients at times because they cannot discharge people at the other end.’
Miss Truss has pledged to scrap the rise in national insurance that funds the new health and social care levy.
But aides now say she will provide the extra cash from general taxes.
The levy was designed to help clear record NHS waiting lists built up in the pandemic then be gradually diverted to help fund a new system that would ensure no one has to sell their home to pay for social care.
Richard Murray of the King’s Fund think-tank warned that taking £13billion from the NHS would inevitably damage care.
He added: ‘The unfortunate reality for whoever takes over as prime minister is that robbing Peter to pay Paul is not a sustainable solution to the health and care crisis.’
Miss Truss said that NHS reform, including cutting its notorious bureaucracy, was the key to improving services.
She said: ‘We put the extra £13billion in and what people working in the NHS tell me is the problem is the number of layers in the organisation they have to go through to get things done.
‘The lack of local decision making. That is what people are telling me is the problem rather than a lack of funding.’
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