The UK Prime Minister has said that proposals to legalise assisted dying should only be debated once social and palliative care has been fixed. Speaking in a major address, Prime Minister Andy Burnham slammed past failures to overhaul the sector and placed reform of the care system at the top of his domestic agenda.
Mr Burnham delivered the speech at a care home in North London, alongside the new Health Secretary Yvette Cooper. As part of his push to overhaul the system, he invited both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to take part in cross-party talks aimed at building a lasting settlement for social care.
The Prime Minister was sharply critical of how the issue had been handled for decades. He called it a major dereliction of public duty that politicians had failed to resolve the crisis in social care, noting that almost 30 years had passed since the Royal Commission on the issue and that 22 separate reviews had followed. He described the situation as shameful.
Burnham set out plans for what he called a national care service. He asked Louise Casey, who was already conducting a review begun under former Prime Minister Keir Starmer, to speed up her work and deliver conclusions within a year. He also promised additional help with the care workforce, stressing that he was making the issue a major political priority.
He also took aim at the current funding rules. Under the existing system, people with assets or property worth more than about 23,000 pounds do not receive help with their care costs. Burnham said he did not think that was right, comparing the approach to the American healthcare system.
On assisted dying, the Prime Minister argued that the funding of palliative and social care needed to be addressed first. The last attempt to legalise assisted dying failed to clear the House of Commons, and the measure is due to be reintroduced by a backbench MP, with a second reading vote expected in September. Correspondents said the Prime Minister's stance effectively kills off the bill, even though the vote is a free one for MPs.
Baroness Louise Casey, who is chairing the Social Care Commission, said the scale of the challenge was already significant. According to her, one in four members of the public are already paying something like 100,000 pounds towards their care costs. She noted that as people live longer, the impact on families grows, making reform more urgent.