Make people pay for NHS care, says report

MAKING PEOPLE pay towards their NHS treatment could be used to reduce pressure on funding for social care, a report suggests today.
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Contributing financially would also provide a “nudge” to the public to lead healthier lifestyles, the Social Market Foundation thinktank said. It has put forward a proposal to introduce personal care accounts, where both the individual and the state contribute towards the costs of NHS and social care treatments.

A report outlines how people would make payments for their treatment set at a small percentage of the actual cost of care. These payments would be capped each year and over an individual’s lifetime, with the state funding the remaining costs. But those on low incomes would be exempt, it said.

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The think-tank said its plans would redistribute the costs of social care more fairly across the population and bridge a £12bn funding gap in health and social care services by 2020.

Report author Nigel Keohane said: “The UK’s current care system imposes many costs on the individual but they are spread very unevenly and haphazardly across different aspects of care (social care, dental care, optometry and prescriptions). This is unfair, illogical and inefficient, and people face markedly differing costs and experiences simply because of the nature of their condition – have a broken leg and be dealt with for free; have dementia and face care costs into the tens of thousands.

“A personal care account would spread the private costs that currently apply in care more evenly across society and would make the system fairer.”

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