A solution for funding social care in England remains many years away.

“Time and again, governments have stepped back from reform when faced with the cost. Too much emphasis is put on the cost of change and not enough consideration is given to the human and financial cost of no or incremental change.”

Those words are from the report, Adult Social Care Reform: the cost of inaction issued by the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee in early May. The timing was somewhat ironic as three days before – on the Friday before the early May bank holiday – the government had published the terms of reference for an independent commission into adult social care in England, to be chaired by Baroness Louise Casey.

A distant prospect

The commission had been announced in early January, six months after the Chancellor abandoned a plan for a long-term-care funding cap in England which had been due to start in October 2025. The terms of reference were surprisingly brief, but buried in them was the suggestion that any new scheme would not be fully operational until 2036 – over a decade and at least two general elections away.

Until the Casey commission’s plan begins, England will be left with a long-term-care funding system which many earlier investigations (including a royal commission at the turn of the century) have said needs reform. The current rules broadly mean that anyone in England with capital of over £23,250 (unchanged since 2010/11) must meet their own long-term care costs in full.

There is currently no insurance policy available to protect against such future costs. If potential care home fees concern you, the best approach today is to ensure your retirement planning makes some allowance for their possibility. The same principle applies for all constituents of the UK, each of which have their own, similar funding rules.