Labour warned health checks in care homes will push more into financial ruin ...Middle East

Social care leaders fear the government’s plan to encourage workers to carry out NHS health checks will end up pushing homes into further financial trouble.

A new independent commission looking into social care reform, led by Baroness Louise Casey, will begin in April.

The first phase of the review will report in mid-2026, but will not make long-term recommendations until 2028 at the earliest leading to fears any potential change will be lost amid the next election cycle.

The commission comes alongside staff being trained to carry out more health checks in a bid to improve the treatment of elder and vulnerable people and relieve pressure on the NHS as well a funding boost for local services.

But Nadra Ahmed, head of the National Care Association, told The i Paper that although the announcement of the commission should be welcomed, the time it will take to report back is “far too long”. Ahmed also had concerns concerns over how any improvements, such as upskilling staff, will be made without additional funding.

She said: “You can’t rebuild the system in a short period of time, but they do need to bring the timescale down. It feels like it has been kicked back into the long grass, because by the time it takes to get the full report and have any action taken as a result we are getting into the next election.

“What worries me in many ways is that the situation we’re in right now is so difficult is what will the commission actually find that will make improvements in four years’ time that we wouldn’t find today?

“The other thing that is quite worrying for us as a sector is going to be extra delegation of health tasks that would normally be carried out by a GP or nurse.

“More and more has been pushed onto social care away from the NHS with no additional funding for the upskilling of our workforce. When you upskill staff you want to be in a position to reward them. There are a number of things we’re just going to have to wait and see the detail of.”

Other measures included in order to achieve the Government’s aim for a National Care Service, are increased use of technology and new national standards to improve support for elderly to live at home for longer.

A new digital platform will also be created to share medical information between NHS and care staff.

Despite Labour’s plans, providers have already warned tax rises and higher staffing costs announced in the Budget could force some care homes, which often operate under small margins, to close.

Social care will also be hit by a hike in the rate of National Insurance contributions paid by employers as well as increases to the minimum wage. From next spring the rate which employers pay in contributions will rise from 13.8 per cent to 15 on earnings above £175.

The sector welcomed an extra £600m (£1.3bn overall) in funding to local authorities for adult and children’s social care. But care groups say the money would be “wiped off instantly” by increased staffing costs with more than 100,000 vacancies last year remaining in the sector last year.

Sceptical care home bosses feel Thursday’s announcement was more a government wanting to be seen to be doing something rather than taking action. But other leaders supported the proposals saying ministers appeared serious over bringing about long-term change.

Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said: “It’s a good idea to equip care professionals to carry out some simple health checks, indeed some already do this. There is a huge shortage of community nurses and meanwhile care professionals are there on the ground working with older people whose health is often fragile, so this approach makes a lot of sense.

“We hope that this is just one part of a much bigger Government led project to upskill care workers and, just as importantly, to grant them the enhanced status and improved terms and conditions they so richly deserve.”

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Concerns have also been raised over the lack of specific reference to autistic people or people with learning disabilities.

Rebekah Cresswell, chief executive of Priory, which provides mental health and adult social care services to more than 28,000 people a year at 280 sites across the UK, said: “Any immediate and further action on social care is welcome, but it is imperative any short-term measures are fundamentally linked to the development of long-term solutions to the crisis in the sector.

“There is currently no mention specifically of people with autism and learning disabilities and we need to be assured about their inclusion in the new independent commission and that their needs and requirements are fully understood.”

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the work of the commission will “hopefully build a national consensus” around what is a new National Care Service, with talks with opposition parties starting next month.

He said: “That means that whoever’s in government, not just in five years’ time, but 10 years, 20 years, 30 years’ time, hopefully we will have built the national consensus. That means that every government delivers for social care in the way that, frankly, successive governments have failed in the past.

“We’re trying to break that cycle of failure and build a new national consensus around social care, with cross-party talks starting next month. I think that is the right approach. It’s the grown-up approach.”

The Health Secretary also said using an insurance system to fund care is something “genuinely worth Louise Casey looking into”.

The previous Conservative government proposed a cap on lifetime social care costs but that has been scrapped by Sir Keir Starmer.

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