National Care Service

The National Care Service (NCS) is the umbrella term for the provision of social care in England and Wales through the public body formed in 2019. Since 2019, they have been funded mostly through general taxation as well as a special taxation on polluters, and the incumbent Labour Government has plans to fully transition it to general taxation. There is only one system, unlike the National Health Service, as Scotland and Northern Ireland's equivalent systems currently operate on a mostly private basis. They were formed in December 2019, as per the wider programme by the Redd-Atkinson Labour Government to expand the provision of public services on a scale similar to that of the post-war period.

## History

Rowan Atkinson, the present Health and Social Care Secretary and at the time backbench MP for Halifax, had proposed a National Care Service - albeit, at that point, as a proposed addition to the NHS - as early as 1994, stating:

> The possibility of this Party being elected must come with the social responsibility of what we have to offer. If we should expect the general public to support us, we must grant them basic reforms that have been a long time coming, such as a National Care Service to serve alongside our NHS, to provide universal, easily accessible social care to the people.
>
>

The New Labour governments, after reneging the Labour Party's promises of nationalisation and Clause IV, did not consider these proposals, and in fact continued the slow effort to introduce market reforms into the National Health Service.

Proposals for the social care began to come to prominence in Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, and featured in their 2017 election manifesto. Labour did not win the general election of 2017, although it did significantly increase its seat number and deprive the Conservatives of their majority, therefore was unable to form a Government and implement these reforms.

The Labour Party under Alexander Redd, upon Corbyn's resignation in May 2019, was markedly left-wing when compared to predecessors like Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, with Redd himself a member of the Socialist Campaign Group, a left-wing group of MPs. Redd's second-in-command was in fact Rowan Atkinson, and although he had recently left the SCG in 2016, he was known for support of widescale nationalisation projects. The Conservative government at the time, under Rebecca Welton, had continued David Cameron's ideology of socially liberal but economically conservative policies.

When Rishi Sunak took charge of the Conservative Party and thus became Prime Minister upon Welton's health-induced resignation in 2019, the new Health and Social Care Secretary was Sajid Javid, at the time Conservative MP for Bromsgrove. Javid submitted a set of proposals for social care provision, rejecting the public body proposal in favour of asset payment. This would have an upper limit of £86,000 - however this was accused by critics of protecting the wealthy's assets and forcing many to sell their homes - and would also only provide for private healthcare, and would also require a tax increase. Atkinson, in response to these, submitted his own proposal for a primarily taxation-subsidised National Care Service, stating:

> Under my plans, it's the oil and gas companies that will be footing the bill to social care, not the working people of this nation.
>
>

Rishi Sunak called a general election for 12 December, 2019, so Javid's social care plans would be awaiting a democratic mandate. The Conservatives lost the election, and Labour won a majority government for the first time since the 2005 general election.

New Health and Social Care Secretary, Rowan Atkinson, introduced the National Health Act 2019 just nine days following the election, and the Act passed through the House, opposed by the outgoing Conservatives. The policies inside it included:

1. An independent public body would appropriate all participating care homes, and would run the funding allocation. This body was named the National Care Service.
2. The Social Welfare Levy was introduced on oil and gas companies, as well as multi-billion companies, to provide for the funding, in lieu of a levy on National Insurance as proposed by the outgoing Conservative government.
3. Social care funding may not go outside the National Care Service.
4. To access social care, the first £20,000 of assets are protected, but up to £26,000 above that could be used to pay for social care. "Personal essentials" - such as their first home - were not factored in to this value.
5. The full renationalisation of the National Health Service, while allowing for private healthcare providers to continue without public funding of any kind, and the return of the NHS to a supplier model.
6. The provision of mental health services through the Mental Health Service.

The National Care Service was officially formed on the 22nd of December, 2019, when a care home in Bingley, West Yorkshire, opted in to join it, thus forming it as a public body overseeing it.