PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Social Services: Finance (20 September 2022)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of increasing the means testing threshold for people accessing adult social care on the number of new people who will access adult social care in England.

Asked by:
Karin Smyth (Labour)

In 2020/21, 360,000 older adults and 256,000 younger adults in long-term care benefited from state support. We estimate that by 2027/28, in steady state the Government’s charging reforms to be implemented in October 2023 will benefit approximately an additional 90,000 older care users. For adults aged under 65 years old, we estimate that by 2027/28 approximately 20,000 additional users will receive state support. Of those 90,000 older adults, we estimate that approximately 40,000 will benefit from the changes to the means test and 50,000 will benefit from the cap or the combinations of the cap and the extended means test. For adults under 65 years old, of the 20,000 users we estimate that approximately 11,000 will benefit from the changes to the means test and 9,000 will benefit from the cap.

Answered by:
Neil O'Brien (Conservative)
23 September 2022