This government response was presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on 4 July 2025.

Read the full response here.

Introduction to the government’s response

This is the government’s formal response to the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee (HSCC) report Adult social care reform: the cost of inaction, published on 5 May 2025. We thank the committee for its thoughtful and timely enquiry, which has brought together a range of insightful analysis, and which will be a vital resource for Baroness Casey’s independent commission into adult social care. The government has carefully considered the committee’s report and responded to each recommendation below.

We share the committee’s view that when adult social care is done well, it has a transformative impact on those who draw on care and support, their families, communities, the NHS and the wider economy. Adult social care should, as the report highlights, be championed in that light with a positive story told. Every year the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) runs a recruitment campaign across TV, social media, radio and online, highlighting the amazing work that staff across adult social care do to support individuals, their families and wider society.

We also agree that the adult social care system is under significant pressure and in urgent need of reform, which is why we are delivering immediate improvements while laying the foundations for long-term, sustainable reform and the development of a national care service.

Truly sustainable and transformational reform will take time. However, as this response sets out, the government is not standing still. We are taking action to transform adult social care and help deliver our Plan for Change, and we welcome the committee’s acknowledgement of our reforms. Reforms underway in 2025 to 2026 will enable more people to live independently for longer and make adult social care more productive.

The action we have taken so far includes a funding boost of up to £3.7 billion for social care authorities, an uplift to the Disabled Facilities Grant of £172 million, which could fund around an extra 15,000 home adaptations for disabled people, the largest ever uplift to the Carer’s Allowance of £2,000, and legislating for the first ever Fair Pay Agreement for care workers.

These tangible improvements support our 3 core objectives for adult social care:

• to join up services at a neighbourhood level so people receive holistic, wrap-around support across their community
• to provide people with greater choice and control that promotes ‘home first’ and helps them to stay independent
• to radically improve care quality through a valued, professionalised workforce

In addition, the 2025 Spending Review allows for an increase of over £4 billion of funding available for adult social care in 2028 to 2029 compared to 2025 to 2026. This includes additional grant funding, growth in other sources of income available to support adult social care, and an increase to the NHS contribution to adult social care via the Better Care Fund (BCF), in line with DHSC’s Spending Review Settlement.

Adult social care is also part of our vision for a neighbourhood health service that shifts care from hospitals to communities, with the NHS working in partnership with local authorities, social care providers and the voluntary sector to provide more personalised, proactive and joined-up health and care services that help people stay independent for as long as possible.

We recognise there is much more to do and that deep reform is needed. That is why the Prime Minister appointed Baroness Casey of Blackstock DBE CB to lead an independent commission into adult social care (also referred to as the Casey Commission). We thank the committee for its continued interest in, and support for, the commission. Baroness Casey’s work has now formally begun, and the committee’s recommendations will support her as she sets us on the right footing for a national care service fit for the future.

The government has given Baroness Casey a broad mandate, enabling her to determine independently who she engages with and how she addresses the challenges across adult social care, including how best to consider the committee’s recommendations. We have grouped together those recommendations relevant to the commission while responding to each in turn.

We recognise that adult social care spans a wide range of services that touch people’s lives in many different ways. Delivering meaningful reform requires coordinated action across all parts of government. That is exactly what we are doing, working collectively to deliver the change the committee calls for and that the public rightly expects.

Adult social care is both a vital public service and a major enabler of the government’s broader missions. A strong and sustainable social care system supports economic growth by helping more people stay in or return to work, particularly unpaid carers and those with long-term conditions. It also drives regional development by creating skilled jobs in every part of the country. The introduction of the first-ever Fair Pay Agreement for care workers will help improve domestic recruitment, retention and workforce resilience over the long term. Reforming adult social care is therefore central to this government’s ambitions for a more productive economy, a healthier population and a fairer society.

Local government plays a critical role in delivering adult social care. However, the current local government system faces structural challenges that limit its ability to plan and deliver care effectively. That is why reforming local government is an important part of the government’s approach to reforming adult social care. Through our devolution white paper and wider work on local government reorganisation, we are supporting councils to collaborate more effectively, pool resources and deliver more joined-up services. We are also inviting views on the detailed approach to funding reform through the consultation on local authority funding reform, which is running from June to August. Depending on responses, we will carry out these reforms in the upcoming multi-year local government finance settlement. These reforms will help create the conditions for a more resilient, sustainable and person-centred social care system.

Read the full response here.