Social Care and the Role of Carers

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a vice-president of the National Autistic Society, as an ambassador for the Alzheimer’s Society and as an informal carer. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, on securing this debate. I shall miss her contributions in this area, which we have shared over many years. I am going to leave to others today discussion of the urgent need to reform social care for the elderly and flag up how important it is that reform, when it comes, includes those of working age.

According to Rethink Mental Illness, from 18 to retirement age, those with mental illness, learning disabilities, autism, as well as physical disability and declining mental health, are among a third of adult social care users. Half of the spend of the adult social care budget is with this group, which gives a good idea of the numbers. Services are stretched and, since March 2019, they have been reduced due to Covid. Legislation that we already have on the statute book—the Care Act 2014, the Mental Health Act, the Mental Capacity Act, and the long-awaited strategy to go with the Autism Act 2009—is meant to provide statutory services for all those people. People have a right to expect them to be provided. This House has supported that legislation along with the codes of practice and some of them are not even implemented. I hope that when we see the new reform, there will be a review of everything on the statute book to make sure that it is being used in practice.

Perhaps I may say a word about informal carers. Informal carers of working-age adults struggle. It is estimated that they are over 7% of the population. Parents and carers battle to advocate for adult children when services are not provided. That leads to mental health breakdown of both carers and those cared for. We have yet to learn the lesson of making cuts to low-hanging fruit in this area. It is all too easy to cut out some of the low-budget issues such as advocacy, befriending, welfare rights and employment—to name but a few. They are easy things to remove, but there are big consequences when they are. We are being made to wait and wait for the long-promised social care reform, So, when it is presented, there should be no excuse if it is not comprehensive, fair and fit for purpose. I say to the Minister: bring it on.