Who should pay for social care for older people in England? Results from surveys of public attitudes to the funding of adult social care

Wittenberg, Raphael ORCID: 0000-0003-3096-2721, Read, Sanna ORCID: 0000-0002-5532-8746, Erens, Bob, Knapp, Martin ORCID: 0000-0003-1427-0215, Wistow, Gerald, Dickinson, Francis, Cyhlarova, Eva ORCID: 0000-0002-1755-6676 and Mays, Nicholas (2022) Who should pay for social care for older people in England? Results from surveys of public attitudes to the funding of adult social care. Journal of Social Policy. ISSN 0047-2794

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Abstract

While debate on how best to pay for social care in England continues, information about public attitudes on this issue is limited. We asked representative samples of the public whether care costs for older people should be met by the state, met by the service user or shared between state and user. We used an online survey of people aged 18-75 (n = 3,000) and interview survey of people aged 65 and over (n = 466). Respondents were given four vignettes (two home care, two residential care) and asked who should pay at different levels of user resources; and how much users should contribute when costs were shared. Fewer than one-fifth of the online sample and one-quarter of the interview sample considered that the state should meet the full costs whatever users' resources; considerably lower proportions believed that users should meet the full costs in all cases. Two-thirds of the online sample and half the interview sample thought costs should be shared. The proportion of costs that users should contribute was relatively low (20-50 per cent, varying by user resources). The study illustrates that public views elicited through vignettes can provide evidence to inform policy on social care funding.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of...
Additional Information:	© 2022 The Authors
Divisions:	Care Policy and Evaluation Centre Health Policy
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine
Date Deposited:	11 Jan 2022 12:24
Last Modified:	20 Dec 2024 00:43
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/113396

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