28 October, Monday, 2024
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HomeSourcestelegraph.co.ukJeremy Hunt should scrap the misleading 'cap' on care costs – and...

Jeremy Hunt should scrap the misleading ‘cap’ on care costs – and save £1.2bn a year

Boris Johnson’s £86,000 cap was nothing of the sort

If Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak want to save £1.2bn a year, they could cancel the plans to change the rules in England about how care is paid for at the end of life.

Not a penny of that money will go towards filling the 165,000 staff vacancies or raising the fees paid by local authorities which are around a third or more below those charged to self-funding residents. It will simply switch costs from a few wealthier individuals to taxpayers.

The £3.6bn cost over three years was going to be met from some of the cash raised by the new 1.25pc Health and Social Care Levy. But that has now been scrapped and is not expected to be revived, even though the Chancellor who introduced it is now the Prime Minister.

The last but one Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, promised that from October 2023, there would be a limit on the amount individuals would have to pay for care home fees. Johnson was reported to want a cap of £100,000 but then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak disagreed and ended up at the odd compromise figure of £86,000.

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