We welcome the Prime Minister’s personal commitment to social care reform. Social care is for everybody. Almost all of us will be touched by care at some point in our lives, whether that’s supporting someone we love or receiving care ourselves.

Yet we know the current system is plagued by inequity; people with similar needs can face very different experiences depending on where they live: from timely, personalised support that enables independence and dignity, to long waiting lists, high eligibility thresholds and unmet basic needs.

As the government considers the future of adult social care through the Casey Commission and the development of a National Care Service, questions of fairness, consistency and equity are becoming increasingly important. Our new research, published this week on care equity, shows how factors like disability, income, where people live, ethnicity, age and gender all affect the care people get. It also shows how problems in accessing care can build up over time: difficulties faced early on can make it harder to get the right help later.

The Prime Minister’s recommendation to bring forward the Casey Commission’s final report to 2027 is a welcome step. Critically, the Big Conversation with the public, launched today by Baroness Casey, must include people who draw on care, and their families and carers. Reform can’t be effective if it’s removed from the realities of people with lived experience; it must instead recognise and respect their invaluable expertise and place them at the centre of all conversations and decisions.

Cross-party support is essential to all of this. We must ensure that progress is not lost to the political tides. Beyond cross-party support, we also need public buy-in. Public understanding and support have been a missing link in previous attempts to reform the care sector; failure to galvanise public support has meant the many previous efforts to reform social care never took hold.

We now have a chance to build consensus across the public, politicians and the social care sector. Only through this consensus can we build a system that helps people live the lives they want – in homes they love, connected to their communities, with control and dignity.

For too many people, the current reality of social care is a system that is difficult to understand, difficult to access and, too often, only responds when someone’s life has reached crisis point. People can be left waiting, repeatedly proving their needs or going without support altogether, losing independence, relationships, opportunities and confidence while they try to navigate a fragmented and opaque system.

Social care must be about far more than keeping people safe or meeting their most basic needs. It should create the conditions for people to live fulfilling and gloriously ordinary lives: choosing when to get up and go to bed, maintaining relationships, having a suitable home, working, learning or volunteering, and participating fully in family and community life.

Achieving that requires reliable and personalised support, earlier help before crisis, fair and consistent access wherever people live, and a skilled, respected and properly supported workforce with the time to build relationships and deliver good care. It also means recognising that too many family and friend carers are being expected to fill the gaps in formal support at an unsustainable personal cost.

People who draw on care and support, alongside family and friend carers, must have real power in shaping the future, not simply be consulted after the important decisions have already been made. Their lived experience is not an optional perspective; it is essential expertise.

The true test of reform will not be the number of reports published, policies announced or structures created. It will be whether, on an ordinary Thursday morning, people experience greater choice, control, dignity and confidence that the right support will be there when they need it. Social care succeeds when it enables people to live the lives they choose, not merely the lives the system permits.

As the government considers the future of adult social care through the Casey Commission and the development of a National Care Service, questions of fairness, consistency and equity are becoming increasingly important.

Our new research demonstrates that when it comes to care, choice and control are not experienced equally. This means that good quality care remains out of reach for many people, leaving them with unmet needs.

People told us what would make a real difference to their lives: a named point of contact, greater continuity and consistency of carers, clearer information, better coordination between services, more consistent provision between areas, investment in the workforce, and greater use of trusted community organisations and culturally and linguistically appropriate support.

Their experiences should help shape the policy solutions needed to build a fairer National Care Service.

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.

This survey paints a deeply concerning picture of a system under unabating pressure.

The financial challenges facing individuals and local authorities, alongside increases in waiting times and pressure on support for unpaid carers, should be a concern for all of us. Behind these figures are people who need timely, high-quality support to live safe, independent, and fulfilling lives.

Perhaps most concerning is that over half of Directors have only partial or no confidence in meeting their legal duties for safeguarding. The need for a coherent and compassionate approach to protecting people from harm has never been more urgent.

The findings underline the importance of sustainable investment, stronger partnership working across health and social care, and a renewed focus on prevention and early intervention. At SCIE, we know that the best outcomes are achieved when services work together with people, families, and communities. As demand continues to grow and needs become more complex, it is vital that reform is grounded in what matters most to people.

The Casey Commission presents a crucial opportunity to act on the challenges highlighted in the survey. It must address the underlying causes of growing demand and inequity, while creating a future that is more sustainable, more person-centred, and more resilient.

Stark variation has become a hallmark of social care in England. It is indefensible that some people receive timely, personalised support that enables independence and dignity, while others receive support that fails to meet even their basic needs.

This report provides further evidence that too many people continue to be let down by weaknesses in the social care system. The findings on safeguarding, assessments and reviews, and transitions from children’s to adult services highlight areas where people can be exposed to significant harm.

The report also highlights, however, what good care should look like. Where local authorities understand their communities, invest in proactive, preventive care, and commit to genuine co-production, people experience better outcomes.

Embedding best practice across the whole system now is mission-critical. SCIE’s work on national standards of care sets out a practical framework for this.

Our new research, ‘Understanding People’s Experiences of Inequities in Social Care’, provides additional evidence for tackling the variation described in the CQCs report – but with a focus on equity as the driver for change.

Geography may shape what services are available locally, but our research shows that people’s choices and control over their lives are unevenly experienced. These wider patterns of unfairness are personal, and they appear to be baked into the design of local care systems – from how care is accessed and organised to how support is delivered.

The CQC findings remind us that good adult social care is not defined by the rating on a report, but by the lives people are able to live because of it. The strongest councils are those where people, families, carers, and communities help shape decisions from the beginning, not simply comment on them afterwards. Co-production is not an engagement exercise; it is a way of making better decisions, building trust, and creating services that reflect people’s real lives.

The report also reminds us that we must look beyond overall ratings. A council can be performing well overall, while some communities continue to experience poorer access, longer waits. or fewer opportunities. Equity means asking not only, ‘How is the system performing?’ but, ‘Who is benefiting, who is missing out, and what are we going to do about it?’

The next stage of improvement should move beyond measuring whether the right processes are in place to understanding whether people experience greater choice, stronger relationships, more independence, and the opportunity to live gloriously ordinary lives. Ultimately, the measure of success is not whether a system works for organisations, but whether it works for the people who draw on support.

The Timms Review is an opportunity to ensure that PIP can support disabled people and people with long-term health conditions to live with independence, dignity, and choice.

As its interim report makes clear, claiming PIP is often complex, stressful, and emotionally draining. It can be especially hard for people who experience mental distress, cognitive impairment, learning disability, fluctuating conditions, communication barriers, digital exclusion, trauma, poverty, or limited advocacy support.

SCIE welcomes the report’s emphasis that people with lived experience must be kept at the heart of the conversation, with their voice and experiences valued and taken seriously. The co-production approach adopted by the Timms Review will ensure that future proposals for PIP are shaped by people’s experiences and underpinned by fairness, consistency, and transparency.

We support a renewed focus on accessibility for people seeking PIP support as part of the review of the assessment process—away from emphasising narrow and restricted functional tasks. Assessment should take account of the real-life circumstances of disabled people and recognise the realities of life-long and long-term conditions, which cause people’s needs to fluctuate over time.

We look forward to supporting the co-chairs and the wider steering group to drive meaningful change.

The challenge facing social care is not simply responding to rising demand, but ensuring that we prevent, delay, or reduce the need for more intensive services, maximise independence, and enable people to live well in the place they call home.

We know that earlier action and prevention improve outcomes for people, reduce long-term dependency, and support the sustainability of both the NHS and social care.

We already have strong foundations embedded in the Care Act 2014 and a widely-shared understanding of what good care should deliver. Our task now includes tackling unwarranted variation in social care.

As the Casey Commission considers the future of adult social care, this is a prime opportunity to promote prevention and early intervention and to identify the investment needed for a National Care Service. That includes building a system that is fair, equitable, and easier for people to understand and navigate.

The latest data gives grounds for cautious optimism. It is encouraging to see vacancy rates return to the lowest levels in a decade and the workforce continue to grow.

But one of the key drivers of workforce growth in recent years has been international recruitment. International colleagues have made an invaluable contribution to social care. However, changes to the migration system mean that international recruitment alone cannot provide a sustainable long-term answer to the sector’s workforce challenges. This is against a backdrop of a reduction in British nationals joining the workforce. Together, these trends expose the fragility of the sector’s workforce pipeline.

The progress shown in this year’s figures is welcome, but sustaining it will require long-term workforce planning and investment. Social care must be seen as a valued career with clear progression opportunities, competitive pay, and access to high-quality learning and development. Building a strong domestic workforce is essential if we are to create a resilient social care sector capable of meeting growing demand in the years ahead.

This Co-production Week is about championing the power of co-production in shaping care equity. Through the sessions, we will be exploring what it means to ensure that everyone, regardless of their background, identity or circumstances, has equal access to high-quality social care.

It is an opportunity for all those involved in the social care sector to share their experiences so that they can influence the way that services are designed, commissioned, and delivered, and to reflect on their work and embed co-production more meaningfully in it. Ultimately, our aim is to create a better, more inclusive future for social care.

We hope you will join us.

Co-production Week is for everyone. It’s about listening to each other and sharing what matters to you. Whether you draw on services, care for someone, work in care, or are part of your community—your view matters.

Almost all of us will be touched by care at some point in our lives, whether that’s supporting someone we love or receiving care ourselves. When we listen and work together, we can make things better for everyone.

Come visit, join in, and help us co-produce a care system that is kind to all.

The ‘no man’s land’ that exists between health and social care because of support delays, confusion, and service fragmentation leaves too many people without the care and support they need to live well and independently.

The Government has repeatedly sought to address this through legislation. As this report makes clear, however, success has been limited. We know that ambitions have been unevenly realised, with persistent differences in people’s access to services, their experiences of those services, and the outcomes they achieve.

Improving how people navigate services must be a priority. This means ensuring information and advice are accessible and timely, and can support everyone to understand their rights and the options available to them. Adopting a holistic approach that considers someone’s journey across health and social care systems will also be essential—the Government’s own review of the NHS made clear that we need stronger community-based support to prevent needs escalating and to better sustain people’s health and wellbeing over time.

With demand for care continuing to rise and more people forced to self-fund their care because they don’t qualify for local authority support, the need for a national conversation on the future of social care has never been greater. The Casey Commission offers an opportunity to build an evidence base for a system that is fairer, more sustainable, and better able to support everyone, regardless of who they are and where they live, to lead fulfilling lives.

This announcement is a welcome step towards a mental health system that more effectively protects and supports people living with a mental health condition.

The strategy’s focus must be on bringing different parts of a fragmented system together. The north star is to ensure that people are placed at the heart of their own care so that they will be better able to navigate their support, advocate for themselves, and live independent and fulfilling lives. For this to happen, we need the cultural and organisational architecture which defines mental health provision to improve.

We know that reform is urgently needed. Mental health services currently don’t have the funding and resources needed to keep pace with rising demand—leaving too many without the help they need. We’ve also seen an alarming slip in understanding of mental health in the last few years. Shifting from crisis intervention to preventative care—and focusing on tackling the profound inequalities that exist within mental health care—is essential.

Achieving care equity now is essential to ensure that access to quality care is driven by need, not geography or circumstance, and to prevent deepening inequalities for those most at risk.

Co-production Week will explore how co-production can help achieve better equity in care, how to effectively demonstrate the impact and difference it makes, and how to improve people’s experience of co-production in social care.

We hope the week will inspire practical action, shared learning, and honest conversation across the sector. We are inviting organisations, communities, and people with lived experience to join us—by sharing their work, hosting events, or taking part in SCIE’s discussions—so that together we can strengthen co-production and help ensure fairer access to care for everyone.

Equity in social care is a vital issue for people who access care and support, and the discussions around equity and ideas shared by people who participate in events that will take place during Co-production Week will help to develop policies, commissioning, and practice that maximise the chances that people with lived experience receive the services and support they want and need.