Doing nothing on social care 'untenable', MPs warn

A failure to fix England's social care system is costing the country in financial and human terms, cross-party MPs have warned.

Doing nothing to reform social care for older and disabled adults is an "active" and "untenable" decision, according to a report from Health and Social Care Select Committee.

It says successive governments have put too much emphasis on the cost of reforming the system, and future plans will be doomed to fail unless the government understands and measures the "cost of inaction".

The government, which has set up an independent commission which has just started work, said it had "hit the ground running" but acknowledged there was "much more to do".

"Taxpayers are currently paying £32 billion a year for a broken system" propped up by contributions from unpaid carers "equivalent to a second NHS", the report said.

The committee found that social care is consuming an increasing proportion of councils' budgets, crowding out spending on other services.

It added that social care makes up an integral part of the government's NHS reforms and cannot be a separate process.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 5 May 2025