The National Care Forum (NCF), association for not-for-profit social care, has responded to the speech by Baroness Louise Casey of Blackstock, Chair of the Independent Commission on Adult Social Care, delivered yesterday at the Nuffield Trust Summit.
Baroness Casey used her speech, and a press release that followed, to call for a national reckoning for social care equivalent to Beveridge’s reforms in 1948. She stressed the lack of ownership and accountability across the NHS, local government and central government relating to adult social care, exacerbated by the reliance on underfunding services and low- paid care workers, as well as families. She stressed the fragility of the current system, highlighting the perverse influence of some private-equity backed organisations operating in the sector, alongside poor commissioning practice by both Local Authority and ICB commissioners.
As she ended her speech, she outlined six immediate actions the government can take on dementia, motor neurone disease (MND) and adult safeguarding due to the urgency of the reform needed in these areas. This includes asking the government to scale up dementia trials, appoint a new Dementia Tsar, set up a new statutorily backed National Safeguarding Board to protect vulnerable adults, and to introduce a new fast-track, social care passport for people diagnosed with MND.
Vic Rayner OBE, CEO of the National Care Forum commented: “We welcome the frank, honest and passionate speech delivered by Baroness Casey today. Much of the learning and experiences she cited from the work of her team since January 2025 will resonate strongly with our members.
“Baroness Casey has called time on decades of ‘arm’s length’ attitudes to social care by both national government and the NHS. Her calls for a national safeguarding board will force the heart of government to take accountability and action to improve and enhance care. We welcome the strength of sentiment behind her call for a laser focus on people living with dementia, addressing the long-held disparity between how ‘the system’ values the outcomes for people experiencing different life courses. In addition, by focusing in on the condition of MND she has articulated the hurdles and barriers those drawing on care and support experience more widely, as do the care workforce who are frustrated in every twist and turn as they battle to advocate for better outcomes for those they support.
“Baroness Casey rightly highlighted the failures in the current construction of a social care‘market’ and the very real commissioning challenges inherent in that falsely defined model. Not-for-profit care provision can, and should, play a much bigger role in the delivery of care. It should form the cornerstone of a National Care Service that sends a coherent and transparent message about how public money is being used. This must be central to an ambition for a truly joined up, well resourced, responsive and accessible care and support system where and when people need it.
“She also looked back to the five giants of Beveridge, adding a sixth measure relating to the care of a population living longer and with more complex need. The politics of national and local government, the shifts in NHS architecture and local government reorganisation, the fragmentary nature of local politics, all suggest that what we might hope to frame as ‘the Casey moment’ for social care will need us all to push together towards a place where both politicians and the wider public understand that social care matters to us all.
“We also want to be clear that, despite the many challenges that Baroness Casey rightly highlights as being present in the system, there are many providers delivering outstanding, high-quality care and support with an exceptional, professional workforce. We need to be highlighting this and pushing for these models, and the principles behind them, to be scaled up.
“The next stages of how she works will be vital to understand, and there is a desperate urgency for ambition, vision and action. Not-for-profit care needs to be at the heart of that ambition, and we welcome the work that Baroness Casey and her team are doing to ensure this vital public service both meets the current needs of communities and is fit for the future.”
