The country's social care system is broken and "cannot be tweaked", the Archbishop of Canterbury has told Parliament as he stressed the need for a fundamental rethink. While funding mattered, using it as a starting point would mean failure, the Most Rev Justin Welby warned.
The senior church leader made his comments as the Government is expected to publish an adult social care reform plan. Social care shortages have fuelled the problem of bed-blocking in hospitals, leading to long ambulance queues and delays reaching 999 patients.
The Government has also faced criticism for the decision to push back long-promised social care charging changes to October 2025. These included an £86,000 cap on personal care cost contributions and an expanded means test that was more generous than the existing one, which had been due to come into effect from October 2023.
