From Wednesday 6 April, the Health and Social Care Levy has begun to raise billions to tackle the COVID backlogs and reform social care.

Over the next 3 years, a record £39 billion will be invested in the health and social care system to ensure it has the long-term resource it needs to provide world-class care, while delivering the biggest catch up program in the NHS’s history.

The levy will also reform the social care system, backed by £5.4 billion. It will end spiralling social care costs, provide a limit to the cost of care for everyone in the adult social care system for the first time, and significantly increase state support.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said:

“We know this will not be a quick fix, and we know that we cannot fix waiting lists without fixing social care. Our reforms will end the cruel lottery of spiralling and unpredictable care costs once and for all and bring the NHS and social care closer together. The levy is the necessary, fair and responsible next step, providing our health and care system with the long-term funding it needs as we recover from the pandemic.”

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak said:

“This government will not shy away from the difficult decisions we need to take to fix our social care system and slash NHS waiting times. The Health and Social Care Levy will fund a third more elective care, over 17 million extra diagnostic tests and a cap on the cost of care so people no longer live in fear of losing everything to pay for care.
The British people deserve the best health care in the world and delivering that is our top priority”

The record funding will help deliver:

• Better control for patients over their care, with more information and access to specialist teams – for example, through the My Planned Care platform.
• A fair cost of care, £1.36 billion will support local authorities in England to move towards paying a fair cost of care to adult social care providers, ensuring market sustainability and preparing markets for reform
• Charging reform – an £86,000 cap on care costs will be put in place in October 2023 so people can have certainty over how much they will need to pay, a measure backed by a further £2.2 billion

The cost of care is capped at £86,000 and raises the point at which people meet the full cost of their care from £23,350 to £100,000 – this is nearly 4 times higher than the current system.

People working in adult social care in England will also benefit from at least £500 million to improve recruitment, retention, progression and staff wellbeing. This will fund measures including continuous professional development budgets, investment in social worker training, and wellbeing and mental health support.

If you would like to discuss the above, or about how we can collaborate, please let us know. To get in touch, email recruitment@ajrecruitment.com or call us on 03305 552233.

As a specialist, family-run recruitment business, we provide a proactive and consultative approach to recruitment within Social Care. We help organisations to target issues such as continuity of staffing, reducing spend where you have a high volume of agency usage and supporting those who have specific talent requirements or are in hard to fill locations. We can help with any immediate staffing requirements or longer-term recruitment projects to ultimately save you time and money on agency spend.

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