The government has announced an independent commission into adult social care to be chaired by The Baroness Casey of Blackstock DBE CB; the aim is to inform government of the work needed to deliver a National Care Service.
Split over two phases, the commission will set out a vision for adult social care, with recommended measures and a roadmap for delivery.
The first phase, reporting in mid-2026, will identify the critical issues facing adult social care and set out recommendations for effective reform and improvement in the medium term.
It will recommend tangible, pragmatic solutions that can be implemented in a phased way to lay the foundations for a National Care Service. The recommendations of this phase will be aligned with the government’s spending plans which will be set out at the Spending Review in the spring.
The second phase, reporting by 2028, will make longer-term recommendations for the transformation of adult social care. It will build on the commission’s first phase to look at the model of care needed to address our ageing population, how services should be organised to deliver this, and how to best create a fair and affordable adult social care system for all.
Professor Vic Rayner OBE, Chair of the Care Provider Alliance, said: “The announcement of the Casey Commission is a welcome step in the move towards developing a fully functioning National Care Service.
“It is hoped that Baroness Casey will be able to move quickly to engage those receiving care and support, their families, the care workforce, those providing and commissioning social care as well as the wider public.
“For this to be the once-in-a-generation shift needed, then all political parties and wider partners need to start from an understanding that the findings of this review lay out a long-term blueprint for change.
“Social care matters to us all and this commission must lay to bed the prevarication and delay of both funding and reform that has bedevilled governments over too many years. With this in mind, the commission must move at a more rapid pace.
“We call on the commission to bring forward it's timetable to allow for real change to happen within a two-year time frame.
“Work on the long term must not distract the government from the very real challenges facing social care right now. The CPA published detailed analysis in November 2024 outlining the critical pressures facing the sector, and it is essential that these issues are addressed now to ensure a sustainable social care sector exists for the future.”
