The summary of this report start with…
‘Whether because we receive care and support, or because we provide paid or unpaid care, it is estimated that 10 million of us are affected by the adult social care system in England at any one time.1 That is almost one in five people— and in a society where we live longer and with more complex conditions, we are increasingly likely to one day be included in that number. Yet adult social care continues to be largely out of sight and off the public agenda until we need it. This is in stark contrast to the NHS. Our understanding of adult social care, as a society, is partial and often flawed. We see social care as intended to support those who cannot support themselves: a burden on resources that is synonymous with decline and crisis.
These assumptions exist not only in wider society but have also framed policy at key points in history and in the present, with the consequence that adult social care has been denied the opportunity to be what it should be: a service that enables people to live fruitful, active and valuable lives. Drawing on adult social care should not be seen as a disaster, nor should it mean resigning oneself to a lower quality of life. Instead, social care needs to be about being given the extra support required to enable people to live what one witness described to us as a “gloriously ordinary life”—like any other citizen.2 This can be achieved by social and economic investment that we make as a society—not least because we are all likely to draw on it eventually…’
See the full paper here: A “gloriously ordinary life”: spotlight on social care