With less than one month to go until the General Election, I thought I should write about what each party’s manifesto contained in regard to health and more specifically social care. However, from the information currently available, and no manifestos having been published at the time of writing, this is easier said than done. There is certainly a good deal of rhetoric being quoted but a lack of important detail about how it will be backed up.

The Labour Party

Ever-critical of the Tories’ running of our sector, Labour has stated an intention to introduce legislation to ‘not just repeal the Health and Social Care Act, but unpick the 25 years of marketisation’. Its aim is to bring the NHS and social care back into the public sector. In respect of the NHS, this will be achieved by using National Investment Bank funds to buyout existing PFI contracts, deemed as a ‘large drain’ on resources that cause ‘financial destabilisation’.

If achieved, it is stated that there will be an end to the ‘purchaser-provider split and return the NHS to an accountable public service run in the public interest’. There are few clues at the moment about how it could be achieved for social care or indeed the implications of such a bold move.

Jeremy Corbyn stated, ‘We will reverse the damaging cuts to social care and build a social care system that enables independence and puts dignity and human rights at its heart’. Without a published manifesto, it is unclear how this would be funded, although a leak of the Labour Manifesto says that it would spend an extra £8bn on social care over the next Parliament and increase income tax for the highest-earning to raise an extra £6bn for the NHS.

Liberal Democrats

Interestingly, the LibDem’s first election manifesto announcement was a ‘recovery plan’ for NHS and social care services. Described as its ‘flagship spending commitment’, it proposed a five-step plan: a 1% raise in income tax, generating £6bn a year, ring-fenced for the NHS and care; introduce a dedicated Health and Care Tax showing on people’s payslips exactly what is spent; establish a cross-party health and care convention to ensure systems are sustainable and integrated for the long-term; and introduce an Independent Office of Health and Care Funding.

The Conservatives

Obviously, we are acutely aware of how the current Government has fallen short of addressing our sector’s crisis. Jeremy Hunt has gone on record to say that the Government recognises that the NHS and social care require greater investment but it all depends on the Brexit outcome. Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, he said that if we get a bad Brexit outcome, it would be a disaster for the NHS.

It has been reported that the previously shelved recommendations of the Dilnot Report to place a cap on an individual’s payment of care fees is being reconsidered. Rumoured to be set to a level of £85,000, the cap would be higher than the £72,000 put on ice until 2020.

Underwhelming

The Labour Party’s plan to de-marketise social care, to my mind, shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how the sector operates. If Corbyn thinks that fat-cat care operators are draining money from the system, I think he needs to do more research. I’m sure if he does the maths, it will become apparent that a publicly-operated social care system will be far more costly to run.

Though the LibDems have been most forthcoming about their intentions, let’s face it, they are unlikely to gain outright power. As part of a coalition, a diluted version of their five-step plan could evolve.

The Tories have made some in-roads to improve the sector’s plight, albeit short of what is needed. However, there are no big election promises at present, beyond a Green Paper, if re-elected. Will it be more of the same and Brexit dependent?

Obviously, an election will not be fought on health and social care issues alone but as a sector we seem to be facing a ‘pie in the sky’ Labour plan versus ‘better the devil we know’.

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