Governments 'asleep at the wheel' over social care, says head of review

Successive governments have been "asleep at the wheel" on adult social care, says the head of the independent commission looking into the sector in England. Baroness Louise Casey said care services for older people and adults with disabilities had been developed in a largely uncontrolled and unintended way, unlike the deliberate design of the NHS in 1948.

As a result, she suggested a postcode lottery had developed with different levels of services available depending on where people live. And she also highlighted the fees that self-funders pay, saying they were much higher than councils were charged for people entitled to state support.

Baroness Casey said care services, such as home adaptations and personal care like helping people out of bed and with washing, were simply not valued enough. Speaking to the BBC's Today programme, she said the NHS had become a "national hospital service: that was focussed on medical care".