Burnham vows to accelerate social care reform, admitting past failures
New UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has outlined plans to reform social care, acknowledging that politicians have failed for decades to address the issue.
Andy Burnham, who recently became UK Prime Minister, laid out his ambitions for social care reform in a speech at a Jewish care home in north London on Wednesday. He admitted this was not his first attempt – in 2010, as health and social care secretary, he proposed extensive reforms that collapsed amid right-wing media hostility and rows over “death taxes”.
Burnham promised to accelerate Louise Casey’s review of social care, originally scheduled for 2028, with recommendations for a National Care Service to be published within 12 months. He said he would back Casey “100%”, but gave no details on funding, saying it could be “fully fledged or lesser options or something in between”.
He emphasised improving quality, boosting pay and training for care workers, and supporting unpaid carers. While not opposed to private providers, he vowed to crack down on “profiteering”.
The key message was political: blame for the dire state of social care lies with his generation of politicians, who had repeatedly ducked reform. Burnham hinted at possible tax increases, saying: “If everybody, on the NHS principle, contributed a little, it would mean everyone could protect the majority of what they’d worked for.” He noted that newspapers like the Mail and the Telegraph do not support that, but asked whether the public does.
Social care campaigners welcomed the speech, with one veteran saying “there was a sense of excitement in the room”. Observers noted clear political will from the top to break the entrenched consensus that fixing social care is impossible. Burnham sharply criticised the current system, comparing it to privatised US healthcare: “The vulnerable pay with everything and it can completely leave them with nothing.”
