TLAP Partnership event with the Green Paper team

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There was strong support for adopting a “big, broad and bold” approach to reforming social care with an unswerving focus on outcomes for people. The following elements of a fit for purpose care and support system were identified through the various discussions that took place.

Vision and purpose

The Government should co-produce a vision for social care, its purpose and who it is for. This vision should be based on the principle of citizenship: that people requiring care and support are citizens first and foremost with rights, responsibilities and entitlements.

Co-production

Creating a sustainable care and support system that enjoys widespread public support requires co-production on a grand scale with people, communities and the care and support sector.

Wellbeing through a life course approach

The primary purpose of care and support is to assist people (including carers) to live well: to have a life not a service. This will be best achieved through using a life course approach, including transitions from childhood to adulthood moving through to older age, rather than by a largely system based distinction between older people and working age adults.

Better conversations

The focus should always be on identifying and supporting what matters most to people, through genuine conversations that lead to support that helps people and their families achieve the outcomes they can reasonably expect to achieve. Person-centred, flexible and relationship based approaches are fundamental.

Stepping away from the silo

A broad definition of care and support should be adopted that assists people to lead the lives they want. This means that all parts of government should work towards this end in order to remove the disjointedness inherent in the existing system.

Making the money work

There is undoubtedly a need for more money: this is a necessary but not sufficient condition. Funding and investment should not however be spent on doing more of the same, but directed to the development of care and support which is authentically personalised and community-based.

Creating the conditions for change

Government (including local government) should concentrate on what only it can do, whilst creating the conditions and space for others to act and innovate, within an overall framework that includes a new financial settlement for social care. Measures of ‘living well’ should be developed and applied across the board so that there is shared purpose and accountability across the system.