Home > All articles The Future Of Care Funding: Time For A Change Caring Choices, a coalition of 15 organisations from across the long-term care system, sought to gather the views of older people, carers and others with direct experience of the system on how care should best be funded in the future. It was born out of widespread and growing concern that the current long-term care funding system is not fit for purpose. Throughout 2007, it has engaged with more than 700 individuals at events across England and Scotland and through an interactive website. The initiative – and this final report in particular – provides insights into potential areas of consensus as well as some of the difficult choices and trade-offs that will need to be made in order to create a funding system that is fair, effective and sustainable. The findings reported below came from the discussions at the Caring Choices events and from a survey of those attending the events, web visitors and a number of partner organisation contacts. Caring Choices found: - There was almost no support for the current funding system. Ninety per cent of participants at the events rejected the use of a means test to determine whether or not an individual receives any state-funded care. In other words, they supported a stronger ‘universal’element, determined by care need rather than by people’s income or wealth. - The vast majority of Caring Choices participants wanted a simpler system, in which entitlements are clearer and people are able to plan ahead with greater understanding of what will be on offer. - Almost all Caring Choices participants (99 per cent of those who completed the questionnaire) believed that more money needs to be spent on long-term care – regardless of what kind of funding system we have in place or where that money comes from. - Just under three-quarters of all participants believed that the costs of long-term care should be shared between the government and the individual, although there was a range of views on how that could be organised and what the balance should be. - Although Caring Choices participants demonstrated strong support for a system that gave a much clearer sense of entitlement to some level of state support, there were many calls for older people and their families to have control over the services they obtain with the help of this support. - There were many calls for a wider range of care needs beyond those narrowly defined as ‘personal care’ (help with washing and dressing etc), such as shopping or help with gardening, to be better supported. - There was a recurrent but unresolved debate about whether and to what extent existing general and nonmeans- tested disability benefits, such as Attendance Allowance, should be brought in to any reform of long-term care funding. - Most participants were in favour of the idea that the state should support schemes, such as equity release, that help to unlock private resources or encourage private contributions towards the cost of care. But there were mixed views on specific schemes and a clear sense that participants felt a variety of options should be encouraged rather than a single ‘solution’. - There was an overwhelming view, often strongly expressed, that the current levels of support, financial and otherwise, for unpaid carers is totally inadequate. Participants emphasised that this is an important issue, and that any settlement will fail if it neglects carers’ needs. http://www.caringchoices.org.uk     By K.S. Date 07-01-2008 Print this article | Send to a friend | React to this article