Last Updated on May 19, 2017

The sector expected to see social care in the General Election 2017 manifestos. The main political parties have now all published their manifestos and social care does feature.

The Conservative Party

The social care headlines from the Conservative Party manifesto are:

• Align means-testing for domiciliary care with that for residential care... This will mean that the value of the family home will be taken into account along with other assets and income, whether care is provided at home, or in a residential or nursing care home.
• Set the capital limit at £100,000.
• Extend deferred payments for residential care to those receiving home care.
• Prioritise NHS health and social care staff from EU countries in negotiations with the European Union.
• Put the National Data Guardian for Health and Social Care on a statutory footing to ensure data security standards are properly enforced.
• Support those seeking to use digital technology to monitor long-term conditions better, deploy carers to patients or support better domiciliary care away from hospitals.

The Labour Party

The social care headlines from the Labour Party manifesto are:

• Lay the foundations of a National Care Service for England built alongside the NHS, with a shared requirement for single commissioning, partnership arrangements, pooled budgets and joint working arrangements.
• Increase social care budgets by a further £8bn over the next Parliament, including an additional £1bn for the first year.
• Place a maximum limit on lifetime personal contributions to care costs, raise the asset limit, and provide free end of life care.
• Increase Carer’s Allowance.

The Liberal Democrats

The social care headlines from the Liberal Democrat Party manifesto are:

• 1p rise on the basic, higher and additional rates of Income Tax to raise £6bn additional revenue, ringfenced for NHS and social care services.
• Direct this additional investment to social care, primary care (and other out-of-hospital care), mental health and public health.
• In the longer term, to replace the 1p Income Tax rise, commission a Health and Care Tax, possibly based on a reform of National Insurance contributions, to bring together spending on both services into a collective budget set out on people’s payslips.
• Establish a cross-party health and social care convention to review the longer-term sustainability of the health and social care finances and workforce, and the practicalities of greater integration.
• Introduce a statutory independent budget monitoring agency for health and care, similar to the Office for Budget Responsibility.
• Guarantee the right to stay in the UK for all NHS and social care service staff who are EU nationals.
• Implement the cap on the cost of social care.
• Ensure social care workers are properly trained, with accessible career pathways, and suitable to practice by introducing a statutory code of conduct backed up by a care workers’ suitability register.
• Raise the amount people can earn before losing Carer’s Allowance and reduce the number of hours’ care per week required to qualify.
• Give the NHS a legal duty to identify carers and develop a Carer’s Passport scheme.
• Provide more choice at the end of life, and move towards free end-of-life social care.
• Evaluate the work of hospices with a view to putting them on a more sustainable financial footing and allowing them to expand their services.

Further detail is available on the relevant party's websites. The King's Fund also has a very useful Election Tracker detailing all health and social care announcements.