Carers UK responds to announcement of draft Care and Support Bill

In response, Heléna Herklots, Chief Executive of Carers UK said:

“It is deeply disappointing that the Government has decided to delay social care legislation until the next parliamentary session. Whilst we welcome the opportunity to work with Government on a draft Bill, the Government has failed to deliver on commitments to get modernisation of social care into law by next year.

We welcome the opportunity for pre-legislative scrutiny of what will be a complex piece of legislation. This Bill will consolidate sixty years of social care legislation and, as a result, will require detailed scrutiny to ensure it preserves key rights for carers, older and disabled people and takes opportunities to improve their experiences of social care.

However carers struggling now without support or who are receiving poor quality or insufficient services will feel let down by delays in legislation and the glaring omission from the Queen’s Speech of any mention of how we tackle the growing crisis in the funding of social care.”

Notes

In a White Paper, Liberating the NHS, published in 2010, the Government committed to bring together the conclusions of the Law Commission and the Commission on the funding of long-term care, along with our vision, into a White Paper in 2011, with a view to introducing legislation in the second session of this Parliament to establish a sustainable legal and financial framework for adult social care.’ In the subsequent Green Paper on Social Care, the Government announced they would publish a Social Care Reform Bill in the Spring of 2012. A White Paper on law reform and a progress report on social care funding are now expected in late May or early June.

http://www.carersuk.org/