Over 60 leading charities in England have called on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak not to backtrack on social care reform on the fourth anniversary of Boris Johnson’s promise to fix the sector.

The Care and Support Alliance said it was concerned that reform had stalled once again four years on from the promise made by the former PM on the steps of Downing Street.

Caroline Abrahams, charity director of Age UK and co-chair of the CSA, said: “Since Boris Johnson pledged to fix social care four years ago we have all been on a wild goose chase as one government policy after another has been announced with a fanfare, only to be subsequently shelved, diluted or dropped. The transformational change in care provision that older people need to see and that was promised to them is yet to materialise, though with our ageing population it is needed more than ever.

“The prime minister stood for office on the 2019 Conservative manifesto and says he wants to abide by it, so rather than backtracking on social care reform he needs to stand by his word and drive forward with it.” 

Adult social care reforms, including changes to the means test and a £86,000 cap on personal care costs that were to be implemented from October 2023 have been postponed until October 2025.

Plans for a new Health and Social Levy to pay for the reforms were scrapped by chancellor Jeremy Hunt in October 2022.

Additionally, social care workforce funding was halved from £500 million to £250 million in April 2023 with a promised £300 million to transform housing options replaced by £102 million for smaller in-home adaptations.

The cuts come as requests for support from both older people, and particularly working age adults, have increased significantly to around 1.98 million. Yet the number of people receiving long-term care has fallen to 818,000 in 2021/22, a 55,000 drop from 2015/16. Older people have been worst affected, with numbers receiving long-term care down to 529,000 in 2021/22– a fall of 23,000 in just one year. 

According to Skills for Care, there were 152,000 social care vacancies in 2022/23 compared to 111,000 in 2019/20 when the social care promise was made – a 37% increase.

Based on current trends, the number of social care posts will be required to increase by around 445,000 to around 2.23 million by 2035.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We are fully committed to our 10-year vision to reform adult social care, and recently published our Next Steps to put People at the Heart of Care plan – setting out how we are spending £700 million over the next two years.

“As part of this we have already allocated £250 million for the workforce to develop their skills and careers and we’ve also made up to £7.5 billion available to help reduce adult social care waiting times and increase workforce capacity.”