Steer urges NHS model for social care funding

Roger Steer urged an NHS-style funding model for social care in Guardian letters published Oct. 19, while Janet Dubé cited a more-than-twentyfold residential-care bill increase within seven years.

Evidence grade: Claim (no study cited).

Steer argued that social care should be separated from disputes about service provision and financed through general taxation, similar to the National Health Service model of care free at the point of need. “The responsible answer is, of course, all of us – collectively,” he wrote.

He also said social care costs were “small and affordable” as a share of gross domestic product compared with other countries, and argued that politicians overstate affordability concerns because they fear being accused of tax rises. Those fiscal and economic claims were not supported by data in the letters packet.

Dubé focused on ownership and public spending. She quoted Louise Casey as saying, “If it’s public money, it should mainly be publicly run,” and called for an audit of transfers of public assets to private individuals and companies, starting with social care.

Dubé wrote that the state’s residential-care bill rose more than twentyfold within seven years after a shift toward private establishments.

Sally Byers challenged language used to describe people with advanced dementia in the earlier column. She said such wording “dehumanises people and reinforces the stigma surrounding dementia,” and pointed to a 2014 Dementia Engagement and Empowerment Project guide written by people with lived experience.

The letters do not announce a government policy, a legislative timetable or a formal review. They show three lines of pressure in the UK social care debate: who pays, who provides care and how people receiving care are described.

Source: letters page, The Guardian, Oct. 19, 2026.

Atlas360 reports health research and does not provide medical advice.