National Care Forum (NCF) and Access Social Care have let their feelings be known about the Spring Statement, released by the government on 23 March.

NCF chief executive Vic Rayner welcomed the announcement of the increase in the National Insurance (NI) threshold by £3,000, equalising it with the income tax threshold, in the hope that it will help many of those working in social care from July onwards. “The 5p cut in fuel duty is also welcome and will help both employees and employers, but is in no way sufficient to deal with the price increases that will fall particularly hard on domiciliary care provision,” added Rayner.

Rayner said that at this stage it is unclear what effect the change in NI thresholds will have on the overall amount of funding for health and social care raised through the NI levy but that the amount of money going from the levy to support social care -£5.4bn out of a previously estimated £36bn – is already too low: “The government cannot allow any reduction in the total promised for social care as a result of this statement.”

She added that the pressures in social care as a result of Covid-19 remain as challenging as ever and the statement did not address them. “With less than eight days to go, the government has been completely silent on what 1 April and the assumptions about ‘living with Covid-19’ mean for those receiving care and support, their loved ones or the adult social care workforce,” Rayner said. “It is of grave concern that there was no recognition in the Spring Statement of the need to continue the Infection Control and Testing Fund, which provides financial support to help the sector navigate Covid-19. This comes to an end on 31 March, and yet all guidance continues to point to significant expectations around testing, infection control, isolation and the ongoing management of outbreaks within services. For social care this seems less about ‘living with Covid-19’, and more about ‘living without a plan’.

“We call on the government for clarity now on the plans to ‘live with Covid-19’ in adult social care and for ongoing financial support for the sector in recognition that Covid-19 has not gone away and the costs for managing infection prevention and control are very much still here.”

Access Social Care chief executive Kari Gerstheimer felt that, despite the Prime Minister’s promise to fix Social Care, this government and “politicians of all stripes” have failed to address the decades-old problem of social care workers being undervalued and underpaid. “Now, with the cost of living rising more dramatically than it has in generations, care workers are leaving social care to take higher paid jobs in retail and hospitality,” she said.

“The social care workforce crisis is so bad that there are parts of the country where it is impossible to recruit, social care services are operating with dangerously low staffing levels and families with loved ones are telling us they are close to collapse. All this is happening at a time when there is more demand for social care than ever before. 

“The social care sector needed more targeted support. We expect to see an increase in safeguarding issues and hospital admissions as a direct result of the failure to address these pressures in this Spring Statement.”

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