Thursday 16 August 2012

Put out the bunting; Dilnot victory!


Great to see from the papers that the Government, or more particularly, the Prime Minister has decided that Dilnot is to be implemented. According to the press he has overruled HMT objections and determined the right thing to do for older people who need care is to go for the very sensible and widely supported Dilnot proposals for a cap of 35k on care bills. The fact that some old people wee forced to sell their homes to pay for social care was a disgrace. But it will be no more. Its right. And it is sensible.

This is superb news. When I had my last meeting with the PM at No 10 on the health bill I stressed just how important social care was and how the Government did need to act on Dilnot. I have to say I thought at the time he was strongly sympathetic to this.

Since then a huge amount of lobbying- both behind the scenes and in the media etc has stressed the need for action. ACEVO member Simon Gillespie and the social care alliance have done incredible work. ACEVO has been using its influence to back this campaign up and it shows that intelligent lobbying can reap dividends.

It has paid off. 3 cheers for Cameron taking a leadership role on this and recognising the need for decisive action. He deserves credit for taking a step that Governments over the decades have failed to do- a point I made directly to him when we discussed this.

Social care has always been the poor sister to health yet a more integrated approach to care for the elderly is both right for old people and , in the long run, a more effective use of resources.

Must be something to do with the Olympic feel good factor ??

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