The proposition is simple, would you be interested in joining a scheme which places some of the responsibility for the Social Care of older people on the community, rather than on the state. Members of the scheme will give care to those in their community who need it, earning ‘credits’ that they can then ‘spend’ on their own care when they need it in the future.
A core motivation for the scheme is to allow the country to allocate more funds to the NHS by relieving the state of some of its existing Social Care commitments and associated costs.
Realising such as scheme will require a significant cultural change which we think can improve the care and support of older people, as well as knitting us into a more cohesive and caring society.
In its simplest form the scheme – which we call Care4Care since members give care now to get care for themselves later – works like a pension scheme, except that personal contributions are paid in time credits, or ‘hours’. Care4Care members earn their time credits by working for people who need care in their local community – which we see as local clusters that organise care in their communities. The credits are accumulated in an individual member’s account, to be spent on his/her future care when needed. When a member spends the accumulated credits on their own care, their care giver earns their own time credits which they can spend when they need care in the future, and so on.
If the scheme becomes established, we would also explore members being able to earn credits by offering care in one local community, while ‘spending’ them in another, for example to ‘buy’ care hours for their relatives who may live elsewhere in the country.
As you will have gathered from the description, the scheme does not depend on volunteering or altruism, but on making provision for your own future by working, offering care to those in need.
Care4Care does not devalue or compete with volunteering; volunteering is a quality which cannot be overrated. It is a marvellous part of the human condition, but there are simply not enough volunteer care-givers to meet current, let alone future, demand for local social care.
Through my work at Brunel University as an Emeritus Professor, I have been talking and lecturing about the idea of the Care4Care scheme for over three years and have recently been joined by Prof. Rob Macredie, just half my age, as we work to make it happen.
Care4Care has recently received a good deal of publicity in the national press, including the Guardian, The Spectator , The Daily Mail , and The Yorkshire Post
The interest from members of the public that these articles have generated suggests that the need for a scheme like Care4Care is well-recognised and understood, and we believe that there will be many people who would like to work together to establish and take part in it.
As an idea, Care4Care sounds very simple: members undertake some work caring for those in need and, by doing so, earn ‘credits’ which represent an entitlement to be cared for, when they need it. The resource which the scheme generates is additional to that which the state collects in the form of taxes and this means that additional state funding which can be spent on the NHS – which will come under ever-increasing financial pressures.
Unlike existing Social Care, we think that the government should have little, if anything, to do with the running of the Care4Care scheme. Rather, the scheme will be firmly rooted in, and coordinated by, the community. We think that this model may prove to be a better way for society to provide some aspects of Social Care and support than the current state/local authority-led approaches.
However, there are legal obligations and regulations which both central and local government have to meet and apply in terms of Social Care, and the Care4Care scheme will have to fit within these, seeking to alter government policy where the existing requirements may prove impractical or unworkable.
In addition, we will have to persuade government that the Care4Care idea has sufficient support to make it a viable contributor to Social Care in the country and that its scale will be such it makes a real difference to the country’s central contribution to the cost of Social Care. Our aim is to provide the evidence that Care4Care can make a real difference to the country’s approach to Social Care by the end of the current Parliament.
If you are interested in becoming a Care4Care member or would simply like to know more please fill out this short survey:
