Axing of Health and Social Care Levy raise questions over Government's plan to fix social care - The Yorkshire Post says

However, like a lot of the Chancellor’s announcement there was little to no focus on who will end up paying for these policies.

It may have been lost on many but the increase in National Insurance Contributions was to help fund the NHS, health and social care, becoming the Health and Social Care Levy next year, which has now been cancelled.

An ageing population and the effects of the pandemic have left social care on its knees in this country. While the Government says it will maintain funding for health and social care services at the same level as if the levy was in place with money coming from general taxation instead, Thursday’s announcement from the Health Secretary pledging £500m for a social care discharge fund shows that there is a long way to go.

That funding on its own won’t be enough and it wasn’t long ago that Boris Johnson promised to “fix the crisis in social care once and for all”. The Health and Social Care Levy was meant to be a part of that fix. There are around 165,000 vacancies in the social care sector and funding will barely keep up with demand. The Yorkshire Post has long campaigned for social care issues to be taken seriously, such as loneliness. And it has listened to voices such as that of Mike Padgham, chairman of the Independent Care Group, who have long called for better funding of social care.

With an ageing population, the Government can’t afford to apply a sticking plaster to the problem of social care in this country any longer.