Affordability will be a crucial factor in the government's reforms to adult social care funding given the current recession, the Department of Health's top civil servant for the sector said today.

Speaking a month ahead of the publication of a green paper on the issue, David Behan told Community Care LIVE that the new system had to promote choice, provide access to care to everybody who was in need and be affordable to government and families.
Behan (pictured), director general for social care, local government and care partnerships, added: “In the recession that's an important dimension that we have to pay attention to.”
With overall growth in public spending set to slow to 0.7% per year in real terms in 2011, the potential for the green paper to lead to increased state funding for care will be limited.

Few in the audience admitted having read the Department of Health's discussion document on the future funding of care The Case for Change which was published last year to spark a debate on the issue.
Encouraging them to do so, Behan said: “It's very important that all of us who work in this sector engage with this debate. If we don't engage with this debate we won't engage members of the pubic with it.”

Source: Community Care