The PM might want to take a look at social care before Nigel Farage does - Jayne Dowle

His promise of a review into social care hasn’t cut much ice with those attempting to tackle the social care system, its endless loopholes and requests for complex information.

I speak from experience, having spent almost the last 12 months helping to devise an acceptable situation for my own elderly parents.

My mum, after a long three-month stay in hospital last summer, is now in an excellent local care home, whilst dad remains at home, thankfully still largely independent. But I can tell you, to successfully navigate this minefield, you need reams of information (thank you to friends who had already gone through the process), persistence, an ability to look doctors and social workers squarely in the eye, and very sharp elbows.

Whilst there are geographical inequalities in care provision, which present one of the biggest challenges to providing a system that’s fair for all, unless you have endless ready cash to throw at the situation, it’s an emotional and financial minefield.

Successive governments however, have failed to tackle it, whilst families have tied themselves into agonising knots, countless individuals have been obliged to give up paid work to provide care, beloved family homes have had to be sold to fund a care home place and too many establishments have not delivered a safe and comfortable experience for the elderly and vulnerable.

Although it’s admirable that the Prime Minister has appointed Louise Casey, who is known for getting things done, in charge of an independent review to investigate social care, it’s clear that reform of the system – such as it exists – is needed as soon as possible.

Up to 3.5 million people in England are not getting the care they need, according to a new report by the cross-party Health and Social Care Select Committee, which lays bare the cost of inaction. This includes two million aged 65 and over, and 1.5 million individuals of working age, with millions more suffering too.

This is putting untenable pressure on families and the army of unpaid carers who are often forced to give up work or educational opportunities to plug the gaps in organised social care, as well as extolling a huge financial burden on the NHS and local authorities, the report finds.

“Time and again, governments have stepped back from reform when faced with the cost. Too much emphasis is put on the cost of change and not enough consideration is given to the human and financial cost of no or incremental change,” the report says.

While the costs of reform are substantial – up to £17bn according to some estimates cited in the committee’s report – this has to be set against the £32bn currently spent every year on a system that was failing, MPs argued.

£32bn is a lot of money to spend on something that clearly isn’t working. Surely the timeline of the Casey review cannot impress the Treasury. The first phase will focus on the delivery of the ‘national care service’, and be published next year, 2026.

Two years later, 2028, the second phase will report, looking at the longer-term transformation of adult social care. However, it is understood that the review’s recommendations will not be implemented until 2036, by which point many of us dealing with the care needs of our elderly parents may well need care ourselves.

It's not been made clear why it would take eight years to put recommendations into action. And of course, there is no guarantee that successive governments stretching 11 years into the future will honour Labour’s timeline.

After all, one of the first things Rachel Reeves did when she took over as Chancellor of The Exchequer last summer was to scrap planned changes to the care system in England recommended by Sir Andrew Dilnot a decade and a half before.

Her explanation? "There are a lot of things this new Labour government would like to do but unless you can say where the money is going to come from you can't do them."

This decision was described as a "tragedy” by Sir Andrew himself, whose recommendations were also ducked by Conservative governments.

The Casey review may well do good, but on the current timescale, it kicks any tangible outcomes too far into the future. The Prime Minister might like to give it another look, before Nigel Farage does.