Autumn Budget: A care boss's social care wishlist

The chief executive of Anchor Trust wears many hats. Jane Ashcroft is vice-chair of Associated Retirement Community Operators, which represents retirement community providers in the UK, a trustee of The Silver Line, the free confidential helpline for older people, and in 2014 received a CBE for her services to older people.

Jane Ashcroft, chief executive of Anchor Trust

But Jane Ashcroft admits care home management is no easy task and says uncertainty on social care funding doesn’t make her job any easier.

While the sector faces challenges in recruiting staff, Brexit uncertainty and underfunding of social care, she says: "In my planning for Anchor over the next three to four years, I'm not assuming any Government changes [on funding reform]. I’m not expecting anything to happen in this Parliament.

"In this climate, providers have to play with the hand they are dealt. But they mustn’t compromise care. Good care home managers are amazing managers of change. I can’t think of a time when recruitment was ever easy.

"For care home managers, it should be about giving the best service to customers, providing the best place to work. That includes not just rewarding staff but making them feel trained and well-supported. Managers should be good at ‘growing our own’. Many of those at Anchor in senior positions started in front-line roles. Growing people means giving people opportunities to grow a career. They have some great ideas.”

Ageing as well as Brexit ‘affects almost every Government department’

While Ms Ashcroft has words of encouragement for care home managers, she is more damning of the Government’s record. With Theresa May’s Government pre-occupied in its quest to find a Brexit deal she says: "I appreciate they've got a lot of things to do. So do we.

“The issue of how we cope and function as an ageing society affects almost every Government department. I can’t think of any Government department it doesn’t affect.

"Enough reports over the years have said there has to be some kind of partnership between the state and the individual. And a limit on how much an individual must spend.

"The worry for me is that it is an issue that successive Governments have ducked and I can't see anything happening with this current Government. At the Conservative conference, Jeremy Hunt didn't even mention social care. Not resolving the issue of social care is affecting families and causing problems across the Government. In the NHS. Housing. Pensions. Benefits. Employment. It is causing a mess for hospitals with delayed discharges.

’Let’s not be paternalistic or sensationalist’ about elderly

“There are those past the retirement age who want to be economically active. Four generation and even five-generation families are becoming a reality. Let's not be paternalistic or sensationalist about older people but let’s have a sensible conversation.”

A sensible discussion, she says, is hindered by the fact responsibility for social care currently sits with a junior minister (in the form of Jackie Doyle-Price) instead of a Cabinet minister.

In the Budget last March, the Government vowed to introduce a Green Paper on social care this Autumn but broke its promise by announcing it would be delayed until the Summer of 2018. Ms Ashcroft says: “Last year in the Autumn Budget, the Chancellor said the Government would address the needs of the ageing population. The Government’s long-awaited Green Paper has been kicked into the long grass.

“Getting the system right is more important than getting a bag of money with strings attached. The system is wasteful. There's a lot of money spent on tendering for contracts. Let's spend the money differently to get the system right.”

Raising the idea of social care insurance, she says: "In some countries, there is a compulsion for people to prepare for social care. The Government should put some compulsion into the system. In Japan, there is social care insurance which everyone starts paying in their 40s. We should look at what’s happening in other countries.

“Care homes play a crucial role and are often the best environment for supporting people with high-level needs including dementia. None of us wants to develop complex care needs but the reality of demographic change is that many of us will and it’s important we have honest conversations about that fact. If I develop care needs best-served by a care home then I very much want to live in one – and we run some of the best in the country."

Jane Ashcroft doesn’t see the Government turning over a new leaf in the Autumn Budget on 22 November. She expects a long, dark and chilly winter ahead but still wishes it would be broken up with a bit of Christmas cheer.

She confesses: "My social care wishlist would have the Government announce that someone senior at Cabinet level will take on responsibility for reviewing all policy areas to reflect an ageing society.

"This and that a white paper on social care would arrive by this Christmas. Then Father Christmas would have done his job."