Boris Johnson’s social care plan lacks detail and ambition – The Yorkshire Post says

Yet, while the Prime Minister has been braver, and bolder, than those of his predecessors who ignored the growing crisis in social care, this was not the ready-made plan which he first promised on the day that he took office in July 2019.

Social care funding storm represents a failure of politics – The Yorkshire Post says

Quite the opposite. There was virtually no clear detail on the improvements to adult social care that can be envisaged after the PM risked the wrath of MPs, and voters, over his funding model that is a ruse to shore up NHS finances.

Omissions that will only perpetuate past “dither and delay”, Mr Johnson should have used this speech to state that it is the Government’s ambition to create the best care service in the world to operate in tandem in the NHS.

He should then have announced a global search to recruit a leader to preside over social care, and work with councils, to tackle those issues, like quality of care and staffing levels, that have been neglected for too long – this is too important to be left to Ministerial under-studies after the raising of expectations.

And he should have been in a position to explain how his plan will encourage more people to become carers. That the PM had to be prompted by opponents to acknowledge the contribution that is made each day by the UK’s forgotten army of carers, young and old alike, spoke volumes.

More than five years after The Yorkshire Post began to champion the social care sector, it would be churlish not to note the PM’s belated intervention. However our fear is that it risks becoming yet another missed opportunity unless the NI changes are underpinned by a very detailed plan on how the provision of social care is to be transformed, a plan that is still not forthcoming.

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