Shaping the Future of Care Together

This Green Paper sets out a vision for a new care and support system. As we all know, more and more of us are living longer which is a good thing, but more of us will also live with needs for care and support. The current care and support system was designed in the 1940s and we need to develop a system that fits our needs in the 21st century. We need a system that is fairer, simpler and more affordable for everyone. To build this, we will need to make some big decisions and reach agreement across society on the right way forward for England. So, this is the beginning of a Big Care Debate.
The case for change
Our society is going through dramatic change. We are living longer and leading more active lives, and we expect our public services to allow us to live our lives the way we want to. But this presents issues which public services need to address.
Care and support affects everybody. We may need care ourselves, know someone else who does or help pay for care and support through our taxes.
We know that, despite many improvements over the years, the system is still regarded as unfair. Many families who have saved all their lives find themselves facing high costs for care and support for themselves or their loved ones.
We know that it will not be able to cope with future pressures in its current form and we need to reform the funding system.
A National Care Service
Building on what people told us that they wanted from services during last year’s engagement programme, this Green Paper sets out our vision to build a high-quality National Care Service that is fair, simple and affordable.
• People want to be treated fairly. We want a system whereby people get the support that they need wherever they are in the country.
• The system needs to be simple. People want to know exactly what to expect from the system and what they need to do in order to get help.
• Care and support needs to be affordable for everyone.

At the moment surveys tell us that more than half of people think that care will be free. But it is not. Care and support costs can be very high: a 65-year-old can expect to need care costing on average £30,000 during retirement.
People told us that everyone in society shares the responsibility for making sure that people receive the care they need, but the funding of care and support generated some of the most heated discussions in our engagement process. People were passionate that any new funding system should be fairer, proportionate to what people could afford and easy to understand.

This Green Paper outlines the government's vision for a National Care Service and what people should expect from it. It asks for your views on some difficult choices that we need to make for this vision to become a reality and to ensure that there is enough funding for the system to be able to deliver the kind of care and support that we, as a society, should be aspiring for. The proposals in this Green Paper would bring about some of the most fundamental reforms ever in care and support.
The government are holding a public consultation until 13 November 2009 on the questions raised in this Green Paper

The executive summary is well worth a read particularly the options for funding long term care.

You can download the full green paper from this page..