Social care needs action instead of more commissions and reviews

However, for many, it appears the Health Secretary, like all those that came before him, has continued the cycle of kicking social care into the long grass.

The commission will report to Sir Keir Starmer in 2026 before making its long term recommendations in 2028, very close to the next election.

There’s a good chance that Labour may run out of time to legislate for its manifesto commitment of a national care service, and we’re still not any closer to knowing what the party means by this.

Yesterday, Streeting said for him this is “about national standards – consistent access to higher quality care for older and disabled people everywhere in the country”.

But there’s still no indication if it will be free at the point of use or how it will be paid for.

When I speak to people in the social care sector, they tell me they want action not an endless cycle of reviews and commissions.

Mike Padgham, who runs Saint Cecilia’s Care Group in Scarborough, told me: “After 30 years of neglect, the social care sector is on its knees and my biggest disappointment from the announcement is the timetable for major reform.

“The sector has had enough of reports, we need to see urgent action.

“We might not have all the perfect solutions at hand, but we can’t have utopia and we need to make a start.

“In the past 20 years we have had five health secretaries and 18 ministers and in that time, eight green papers, four white papers, two inquiries and numerous other reports.”

In 1997, Tony Blair set up a royal commission on social care, yet “here we are all those years later and we still haven’t moved on,” Mr Padgham added.

Mr Streeting says he wants to build a consensus, yet there was cross-party support for the proposals from Sir Andrew Dilnot, which was scrapped by the Chancellor last summer.

That plan would have introduced an £86,000 cap on the amount an older or disabled person would have to pay towards their support at home or in care homes.

Local authorities said they couldn’t afford this, but it would save the Government a lot of time and money to just give them the funding for the cap.

On social care the time for talking should be over, but it sounds like it has only just begun.