Big Shifts on the Horizon for Adult Social Care
Picture this: England’s adult social care system finally gets the attention—and the overhaul—it’s been crying out for. That’s the bold challenge Baroness Louise Casey and her new independent Casey Commission are taking on. Their job? To rethink and reshape social care for adults across England, right down to its core. But if you’re hoping for overnight change, buckle in. Some of these reforms could take up to ten years to fully play out.
This isn’t just tinkering around the edges. People dealing with underfunded care, tired staff, and clunky support systems have waited years for sweeping change. Now, for the first time, the government is giving an independent team the license to look at everything from funding models and early prevention to how the NHS and social care services can actually work in tandem—rather than falling over each other.
The vision? Something as ambitious as a National Care Service, designed to fix deep-rooted problems and meet the needs of a steadily aging, often forgotten population. It’s about putting prevention at the center, making sure people don’t just get support when it’s already too late—and creating funding models that won’t buckle under pressure.
How Change Will Happen: Two Steps, Lots of Stakeholders
The Casey Commission isn’t going it alone or trying to solve everything at once. They’ve split their work into two clear phases. First up: medium-term fixes to improve daily care and take some heat off the NHS. This means getting funds into frontline services quickly and finding ways for social care and NHS teams to actually talk to each other, not just exchange paperwork.
Phase two is where things get even bigger. Due by 2028, this report aims to offer a blueprint for building a brand-new care system—one that could need all parties in Parliament working together. There are real worries that even the best ideas could take a decade before all the pieces fit together—think new structures, funding formulas, and probably some new laws too.
The government isn’t waiting for long-term ideas to kick in. There’s already a commitment of £3.7 billion to prop up care services for 2025-2026. That’s supposed to mean not just more cash, but also practical things: like changing homes so another 7,800 disabled people can actually live comfortably and independently. There’s also a push to use technology—devices and apps to help older adults remain in control of their routines, rather than feeling like passengers in their own lives.
Stakeholders are already making lots of noise. The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) has flat out said: more investment can’t wait. British Association of Social Workers (BASW) is keen that social workers—and their expertise—don’t get pushed out of the picture as new policies are drawn up.
If anything’s clear, it’s that this is a huge collective effort. The commission will be thrashing things out with everyone from the Department of Health and Social Care and HM Treasury to the Ministry of Housing, all in a bid to make sure the process is open and data flows freely. People on the ground—including advocacy groups—say this is a chance to finally tackle long-standing issues like workforce retention, safeguarding vulnerable adults, and closing care gaps for those who need it most.
A transformation of this scale hasn’t been seen before in English social care. It’s ambitious, it’s messy—and frankly, it’s about time. But for millions who depend on care every day, the biggest question is: can the waiting game finally pay off?