Cap on care costs

Three year ago, as Care Minister at the Department of Health I secured a commitment to introduce a cap on care costs from 2016. The cap would have protected people from crippling care costs in old age if they needed care for conditions like dementia.

There is a dreadful unfairness at present that if you suffer from cancer, everything will be paid for under the NHS (and rightly so) but if you have a condition such as dementia where your main need is for social care you may get no help at all.

The Conservatives committed in their manifesto to continue to introduce the care cap so families wouldn’t have to sell their homes to fund their care.

Now, the Conservative government has betrayed those millions of families faced with social care costs. They instead chose to spend a lot of money cutting inheritance tax for very wealthy people.

If you agree with me that we must continue to introduce social care funding reforms next year as promised, please sign my petition below.

“We call on the government to introduce the cap on care costs and extra help for those people on modest means by way of a contribution towards their care costs as promised in April next year.”