Conservative

• Means testing for domiciliary care will be aligned with that for residential care. This means that the value of the family home will be taken into account along with other assets.
• A “capital floor” of £100,000 would be introduced, so that whatever the cost, people will retain £100,000 of their savings or value of the property.
• Freedom to defer payments for residential care would be extended, to people receiving care at home.
• A Green Paper (consultation) would also be published, to look at how to address and improve the quality of care and reduce variation in practice. This is also intended to ensure that the care system works better with the NHS to reduce unnecessary hospital stays, delayed transfers of care and provide greater quality assurance with the care sector.
• The Conservatives would aim to reduce loneliness and promote technological solutions for independent living and invest in Dementia research.
• Support would be given to new providers seeking use of digital technology to monitor long-term conditions better, deploy carers to patients or support better domiciliary care.
• Informal carers would be given a new statutory entitlement to carers leave.
• Winter fuel payments would become means tested.

Labour

• To address the immediate funding crisis in social care, an additional £8 billion would be provided over the lifetime of the next Parliament, including £1 billion in the first year. This is intended to stabilise the care sector and ensure providers can pay a real living wage without cutting the quality of care.
• By working with councils Labour would end 15-minute care visits and tackle the exploitation of staff on zero-hours contracts.
• The Carer’s Allowance will be increased for unpaid full-time carers to align the benefit with Jobseeker’s Allowance.
• In its first term, following public consultation and in partnership with providers and commissioners, Labour intends to review options to create a National Care Service this will include consulting on options for sustainable funding to ensure funding is fair in its impact upon different generations, as well as between people with varying levels of wealth.

Liberal Democrats

• The Lib Dems will introduce a 1p increase in Income Tax, to be directed into the following areas; social care, primary care (and other out of hospital care), mental health and public health. In the long term to replace the 1p tax, consult and commission the development of a dedicated health and care tax.
• A cross-party health and social care convention would be established to bring together stakeholders from all political parties, patients groups, professionals from the sectors, the public and representatives from the devolved administrations. This would review the long-term sustainability of health and social care, from the perspective of its funding and further integration.
• A statutory independent Health and social Care budgeting agency would be introduced, similar to the Office of Budgetary Responsibility.
• The process of implementing the cap on social care costs would be completed.
• Single place based budgets for health and social care would be in place by 2020.
• Funding would be remodelled to encourage joined up services, better patient outcomes and prevention.
• A statutory code of conduct would be introduced for workers in social care.
• The number of hours care per week would be reduced to qualify. The NHS will be given a legal duty to identify carers, and introduce a passport scheme to inform them of their carers rights.

If you'd like to find out more about the parties manifestos, click the links below:

Conservative 2017 Manifesto

Labour 2017 Manifesto

Liberal Democrats 2017 Manifesto

Every vote will make a difference, so to bring about the future you want, you’ll really need to play your part and vote on 8th June 2017!