25 year plan needed to fix social care system- says Norfolk charity
Latest data shows that the number of unpaid carers in England has grown by 70% since 2015
The head of a local charity is calling for a 25 year long plan to fix the social care in the county and beyond.
A national report claims the system is at 'breaking point'- with the number of unpaid carers surging in the last decade.
Research for the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) found rising demand, shrinking supply, and a growing reliance on unpaid carers.
"Recruitment is just really hard at the moment"
Miriam Martin is from 'Caring Together':
"I think there needs to be more of an emphasis on getting good quality into the care industry and paying them well. As it's clear at the moment that they're not being paid well.
"Recruitment is just really hard at the moment, as providing care at the moment isn't seen as a very high-status job.
"When in reality, if you were looking for a loved one to be put into care you'd want to make sure that they were getting really high quality.
"I also think there's a bigger role for technology and digital, when it comes to helping carers and unpaid carers with their workload.
The work in more detail:
Analysis for the report, conducted by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), revealed the number of people providing 35 hours or more a week of care increased from 1.1 million in 2003/04 to 1.9 million in 2023/24.
New requests for support increased from 1.8 million in 2015/16 to 2.1 million in 2023/24, mainly from working age adults increasingly needing care, said the report.
There has been a 15% rise in people requesting some form of adult social care which has only been met with a 2.5% increase in those receiving it, according to the research.
The report says unpaid care - whether by parents, spouses or adult children, and most frequently women - is relied on too heavily to fill in the gaps of the "inadequate and expensive" adult social care system.
"We need to build a care system that works like a public service"
Abby Jitendra, author of the IPPR discussion paper and principal policy adviser at JRF, said:
"Millions of us are carers or need care, and this number will surge in the future, but families are being left to navigate a neglected system - paying sky-high costs, sacrificing work to care, and too often going without the support they need.
"We need to build a care system that works like a public service: universal, affordable, reliable and fair. That means bold reform now - not another decade of drift."
The report added that the Government's commitment to set up a National Care Service must tackle the challenges of an ageing and changing population, a retention crisis in the care workforce, and the key issue of funding.
What's the Government said on this?
The Government says it's set-up an independent commission into adult social care- that will report back over the next three years'