Andy Burnham vows to fight next election with NHS-style social care plan

Andy Burnham vows to fight next election with NHS-style social care plan The Prime Minister signalled he was prepared to hike taxes to fund the plans, saying everyone would be asked to contribute to a new universal National Care Service Andy Burnham has said he will fight the next election on radical plans to introduce an NHS-style social care system. The Prime Minister signalled he was prepared to hike taxes to fund the plans, saying everyone would be asked to contribute to a new universal National Care Service. Mr Burnham said a shake-up of the creaking system would be "hard" to deliver in this Parliament due to Labour's 2024 manifesto commitments, which have tied his hands on a number of tax rises. But he said he was prepared to make unpopular choices to "grasp the nettle" of reforms that have been kicked down the road by successive governments. Speaking as Labour's annual conference got underway in Liverpool, Mr Burnham told the BBC: "I am talking about a system that works on NHS principles because that is the only way you can make it work. "There is free personal care elsewhere in the UK. I don't think it's right that people in England don't get the same and it's not something we're going to rush." Mr Burnham is expected to spell out more details of his plan, which is being developed alongside a review by Baroness Louise Casey, in his speech to Labour conference on Tuesday, including a timetable for rolling it out. But the funding is likely to prove hugely controversial. His previous attempt to reform the system as Health Secretary under Gordon Brown, which could have been funded by a levy on estates, was branded a “death tax" by critics. The PM said he would put the plans to voters at the ballot box, in the hope of neutralising political opposition to the thorny issue of funding social care. “I am prepared to put myself in that position, recognising that it might be difficult or unpopular with some,” he said. He rejected an estimate by the Health Foundation that free care in England could cost taxpayers £18bn a year, saying: "It's not that high." The PM argued people were paying the price already, through a system in England where people with savings worth more than £23,250 are not entitled to help with care costs from their council. Mr Burnham said: “People are paying care charges now. They are spending tens of thousands of pounds from their savings, sometimes losing their homes. That is what’s happening at the moment. “So to suggest there isn’t a cost to people at this moment in time, there’s a huge cost. Social care in England is as unfair as American healthcare, where the most vulnerable in society can lose everything, they can be wiped out, not just by the condition that they have, but wiped out financially.” He tore into failings by previous governments, saying: “Is there any wonder that politics is in such low esteem with the public when it can’t fix something as basic as the care that we give to each other? “So it can’t carry on. Somebody needs to grasp the nettle. I will be the one to do that and I realise it might require me to spend some political capital. That it might make me unpopular with some, but that isn’t going to stop me.” His comments came after he told The Mirror that he was more determined to fix social care than ever following the death of his father two weeks ago. His dad Roy was living in a care home as he battled with Alzheimer's disease. Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director of Age UK, said: "The comments made by the Prime Minister today suggest we are closer to the fundamental social care reform we need to see than we've been for a generation. "In the years since, millions of older and disabled people and their families have had to put up with a system that is increasingly unfit for purpose, and hundreds of thousands of care staff have done the best they could with it, all the time on poverty pay. We can and we must do better and we await the Prime Minister's speech on Tuesday with huge anticipation." Helen Walker, Chief Executive of Carers UK said: “This is a pivotal moment for families and their loved ones who need unpaid care, to hear the Prime Minister talk of building a National Care Service and introducing a system that works on NHS principles. “The desperate shortage of social care breaks families and currently already has enormous costs. Many thousands of families have to soak up the shortfall to provide unpaid care, are being forced to give up work, are driven into poverty and face ill-health as a result."