Social care needs solutions now
There’s an urgent need to invest more to support unpaid carers
The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) has launched the findings of its 2025 Spring Survey. The situation they describe in social care is stark and getting worse.
Increasingly, the sparse resources allocated to social care are being absorbed by the gaps in health care.
For dementia carers, we already know this means longer waits for less support. Frances Lawrence, CEO, Dementia Carers Count
The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) has launched the findings of its 2025 Spring Survey.
We regularly hear from carers who are not accessing the financial support they are entitled to, who have never had a Carer’s Assessment and who are reaching breaking point.
We’re not surprised but deeply concerned to learn about the reported increase in safeguarding concerns over the past 12 months.
With dementia becoming more prevalent, and families being left to manage on their own without support, there is an urgent need to invest more not less in the services that are needed needed to prevent breakdowns in care. These have adverse consequences for everyone involved. Frances Lawrence, CEO, Dementia Carers Count
The 2025 ADASS Spring Survey found that:
- Over 400,000 people are waiting for an assessment of their needs, for care and support or their direct payment to start, or a review of their care plan.
- The proportion of councils positively investing a rising proportion of their budget in unpaid carers has fallen.
- Three-quarters of Directors (75%) reported an increase in the number people presenting to adult social care who were or would have previously been eligible for continuing healthcare funding (CHC).
- Four-fifths of Directors (80%) reported an increase in the number of local safeguarding concerns in the last 12 months, with 88% also reporting an increase in the complexity of the concerns received.
We look forward to Baroness Casey’s report, and welcome wholesale, long overdue reform of Adult Social Care, but the government cannot wait to act.
There are many simple practical solutions that can be put in place now to help alleviate some of the worst impacts on carers. These include:
- Providing carers with a single point of contact to help guide them through complex health and care systems
- Prioritising clearing the backlog of Carer’s Assessments and supporting carers to develop alternative plans for when they can’t care
- Fixing CHC funding so that people with long-term complex health needs and their unpaid carers don’t miss out on funding due to a flawed assessment process in England
We hope the incoming Prime Minister will prioritise tackling this desperate situation and work with the Casey Commission to support longer-term reform of Adult Social Care.
In the meantime, you can add your name to our joint petition which calls on the Government to fix CHC funding.
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