What care is received by older and disabled people in England? What financial contributions might they be expected to make to their care?
The PSSRU at LSE, in collaboration with the BBC, has just launched a Care Calculator and a Care Questionnaire. These are on the BBC website|.
The aim of the Care Calculator is to give an approximate idea of the level of social care - both public and private - currently provided in England. It sets out what is likely to be received by somebody with a particular profile of needs - and there are six hypothetical profiles on the website - and what financial contribution would be expect of them given what usually happens in social care services across the country.
The Care Calculator has been developed by Jose-Luis Fernandez and Martin Knapp. It does not attempt to determine levels of entitlement but to reflect what currently happens in England. This is then the basis for a very simple short questionnaire which gives people an opportunity to comment on what they feel about levels of support currently offered to disabled and older people in England.
They are also asked their opinions about how care should be funded, whether an individual's level of savings should affect what they pay, how informal care could be encouraged and which of a number of potential funding arrangements might they support.
The latter include funding from income tax, from equity release schemes, from private insurance policies and the partnership system first set out in the Wanless Social Care Review, the work for which was undertaken by PSSRU staff at LSE. Early results from the survey|, which were completed online, were presented on Radio 4 on 31 January when Care Services Minister Ivan Lewis joined a studio audience along with the LSE team, to discuss care services and their funding. The transcript from the programme can be found on the Radio 4 You and Your's programme website|.