Polly Toynbee (Battles loom over social care, but this fight must be won. At last, we have a PM who believes that, 29 July) is right that reforming England’s broken social care system will require winning the “attention, hearts and minds” of a public that knows little about it. Yet one of the biggest barriers to reform is that social care itself remains widely misunderstood, and public debate often reinforces narrow assumptions about who uses it.
Social care is too often equated with care homes and dementia services for older people. While these are vital, they are one part of a wider system. Demand has grown fastest among working-age disabled adults who are largely missing from the public and political narrative. As such, the assertion by Polly Toynbee that “the old must pay for the old” is incorrect. Social care is relied on by people of all ages.
