Care costs cap delayed until 2020

Costs for over 65s and younger adults with disabilities were to be limited to £72,000 from April 2016. The key manifesto policy will now be pushed back until 2020, after councils wrote to ministers requesting a delay due to increasing pressures.

The Department of Helath claims it is still ‘firmly committed’ to the cap, but questions have been raised whether the policy needs rethinking.

Responding to the announcement, Cllr Seccombe, Chairman of the Local Government Association's Community Wellbeing Board, said: 'The announcement to delay the second phase of the Care Act is a positive recognition from government of what the LGA has been warning- that we cannot try and reform the way people pay for adult social care when the system itself is on such an unstable foundation.

'Any money from delaying the reforms must be put back into adult social care services and support putting it on a sustainable footing. The funding gap in adult social care is growing by a minimum of £700m a year, and whilst this will not cover the rapidly increasing care costs councils are facing, it will be better than to attempt to push forward with changes on shaky grounds.'

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