Government right to delay LTC solution?

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The Dilnot Commission's recommendations on long term care (LTC) are not the only course of action and the Government is being overly criticised in the run up to next month's White Paper on social care, Partnership has said.

Noting that the government is under pressure from councils and care charities to adopt the Dilnot report's push for spending caps for long term care, the care funding specialist said the Government has a decent track record.

Partnership pointed out the Dilnot capital cost model is untried anywhere in the world, it is expensive - at £1.7bn - and builds on a lack of core funding.

Chris Horlick, managing director of care at Partnership, said: "I would argue that the Government has done pretty well in the last two years. Social care was in the initial coalition agreement and the Department of Health announced a provision for social care as they came to power.

"The Government also continued the Law Commission's report into care law and, of course, commissioned Dilnot.

"It is not unreasonable to consider all this and then to set an engagement process to see how it all hangs together. So why the flak?"

Jim Boyd, director of corporate affairs at Partnership, said: "Dilnot is a spending solution, not a funding solution, it does not say where this money is going to come from.

"What stops this market is lack of clarity between what you pay and what the Government pays for. The Dilnot report does not clarify this. We are consolidating a general sense of confusion."

However, the insurer believes June's report may opt for an increase in the current threshold for LTC self-payers. An increase to £100,000 from the current maximum of £23,500 would cost about £100m.

"This could potentiallly be an astute political move," said Horlick.

 

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