Social Care

Why Labour?

As people live longer and healthcare improves, demand for social care is set to rise over the coming decades. Labour is responding to these demographic changes, taking the right long-term decisions to secure a fair balance of funding between the taxpayer and the individual, and a person-centred service for everyone with long-term needs and their carers. As a first step towards a new National Care Service, we are introducing free personal care at home for those with the highest needs. We want to give people more control over services and enhance their dignity and quality of life. To do this we are giving more personal budgets to the people who use care services, putting them in control of their own care.

Key achievements:

• Labour introduced the right to request flexible working for parents of disabled children, and has extended this to cover carers of adults.
• Labour’s New Deal for Carers provides support and services for carers, and we support carers financially through the Carers Allowance.
• Labour has launched its Dignity in Care campaign, putting dignity and respect at the heart of care for older people and people with mental health problems, and investing £67 million to improve care homes for older people. Over 4,000 people have already signed up as Dignity Champions.
• Labour has introduced tough new safeguarding laws, to make sure that people who present a risk of harm are barred from working with children and vulnerable adults.
• Labour has legislated to protect people who may be unable to make decisions for themselves, through the Mental Capacity Act.
• Labour has given new rights to disabled people through the Disability Discrimination Act, and has signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

A future fair for all:

• Labour is introducing free personal care for those with the highest needs, as a first step towards the creation of the first ever National Care Service, dedicated to providing care for older and disabled people, bringing together NHS and local care provision.
• Labour will introduce free one-to-one home care by specialist nurses for every cancer patient in England, as well as giving more patients the option of receiving treatment at home instead of having to go to hospital.
• Labour has launched the first national Dementia Strategy, to transform care for people with dementia with the appointment of dementia advisers, better training for GP's and the establishment of memory services staffed by specialists to provide early diagnosis and treatment.
• Labour will give more people their own personal budgets to choose the support services they want for themselves or their family members.
• Labour has made families with disabled children a priority, with a total of £770 million in new funding for local authorities and primary care trusts to support disabled children and their families, to transform short break services, and to improve disabled children’s services and children’s palliative care.
• Labour’s Carers Strategy included plans for a significant increase in funding for short breaks for carers of adults.
• Labour is investing £80 million in Extra Care Housing, to avoid forcing older couples apart when one of them needs to enter residential care, allowing them a home of their own with care and support services on site.
• Labour is launching a targeted package of extra support for charities providing debt advice, mental health and family support services in the most deprived areas of England, plus millions extra to help those out of work start volunteering.
• Labour is introducing annual health checks for adults with learning disabilities, who are likely to have greater health needs than the general population.