SCIE welcomes new Prime Minister

The Prime Minister has spent many years arguing for a National Care Service based on dignity, independence, personalised care and support for families and carers. Those principles now need to move beyond aspiration and become the foundation of lasting reform.

SCIE welcomes the Prime Minister’s ambition to ‘fix the big things that politics has neglected’, including social care. The challenge now is to move from commitment to action.

Previous attempts to reform the adult social care system never lacked ambition or good intentions, but short-term fixes have overshadowed the structural, financial and delivery reforms truly needed. We’ve experienced decades of incremental change rather than a single defining moment.

This Parliament presents an opportunity to change that. Rather than expecting people to navigate the system as it exists today, reforms must be designed around what people, families, carers and the workforce experience every day.

For reforms to be long-lasting, we need to build on evidence of what works, invest in our workforce and ensure the social care system is working in partnership with other public services, from the NHS to housing.  We also need to focus on prevention and early intervention, and not just crisis-related care.

We look forward to working with the Prime Minister, ministers, local leaders and partners across the sector to achieve a consensus about creating a social care system that is sustainable, equitable and fit for the future.