Introduction

The discussions in the previous chapters have identified shortcomings in policies and practices on unpaid care, not only in the gap between policy rhetoric and practice realities but also in the framing of unpaid care and its place within the wider political context of a marketised system of care. In this chapter, the discussion returns to the point raised in Chapter 1, when Andrew Dilnot said on the BBC's World at One programme that it required ‘courage and strength of will’ to develop policy on social care because it is a subject that politicians would prefer to avoid. Politicians have made enormous assumptions about the willingness of family members to take on caring roles and have also idealised care in the family as a warm and superior option in comparison to formal care services. Policy debates have shown widespread acceptance of the moral case for support for unpaid carers and legislation has raised hopes of a cultural change on the horizon which will include justice and rights for carers. Yet, when it comes to developing practical support, unpaid care appears to be persistently stuck as a low priority for state support. As discussed in Chapter 5, the political and economic contexts over the past decade have been unsupportive to the point of destruction to social care in general and to unpaid care specifically. Campaigns of and for unpaid carers have produced copious amounts of evidence and have argued their case at the heart of policy making in all governments in the UK, gaining all-party support. Yet, despite successive policies and strategies to support carers and despite the efforts of campaigners over decades, pressure on unpaid care has increased rather than decreased and while the COVID-19 pandemic brought the gross shortcomings of the social care system to the attention of the public, there has been no apparent change in the direction of policy since. Indeed, in England reforms to social care look set to be resourced inadequately on precisely the same economic grounds as previously, with the added bitter irony that the pandemic is given as a major reason why resources cannot be found. The persistent lack of resources raises questions about the purpose of policies and meaning of rights when these rights amount to such limited practical benefit.