BASW England consultation on the future of adult social care

Update on the consultation response

In response to the announcement in 2018 that the Green Paper on Adult Social Care would be published, a task and finish working group, part of the BASW England Adult social work group (formerly known as the Adult Policy Practice and Education group) was established to develop a position on behalf of BASW England members. 

The BASW England Adult Social Care Green Paper working group developed a consultation paper which summarised ideas about how the current system of assessing and meeting needs could be made more transparent and have a greater emphasis on promoting independence.

These ideas were set out in a paper entitled “The Future of Adult Social Care" and feedback from BASW members was sought via a consultation in the latter part of 2019.

The information being published here contains the formal consultation response and the analysis relating to the qualitative questions asked in the survey.

This work was initiated pre Covid-19. Following some initial activity, the development of the full consultation response including the analysis, conclusions and recommendations has been delayed due to the impact of Covid-19.

In July 2020, the consultation analysis was used to inform the submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry.

The Future of Adult Social Care consultation response, the analysis and subsequent information need to be considered in terms of the current context of social care.

The adult group have been doing further work to develop the conclusions and policy proposals in order for this to be purposeful. Work on this is underway and will be published in the new year.

A forthcoming article in Professional Social work magazine entitled ‘ten reforms we would like to see in social care’ provides the adult group’s perspective on what social care reform should look like, draws on information and from both the consultation analysis and the parliamentary Inquiry submission.

Further to this, BASW England will be considering how to lobby on social care reform in the New Year.