Welsh Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Minister, Peter Black, has welcomed the endorsement of the Deputy Minister for Social Services, Gwenda Thomas for his party’s policies on helping people pay for social care and is now asking the government to back the ideas.

Speaking in yesterdays National Assembly debate on the Social Care Green Paper, the Deputy Minister praised the Welsh Liberal Democrats admitting that the proposals passed at their autumn conference in Wrexham would “make a start on addressing some of the problems” and “make it easier for people to fund adaptations to their homes and see a gradual increase in the numbers entitled to local authority support.”

The policies referred to by the Minister are the commitments by the Welsh Liberal Democrats to establish and fund a Welsh Home Improvement Lending Agency to provide equity loans to enable home owners to access money to carry out adaptations and repairs to their homes, as well as the commitment to gradually increase above the rate of inflation the threshold at which care home residents are excluded from local authority support.

Peter Black said:

“If the Deputy Minister agrees with our policies, then she should enact them. If the government want any more, we can provide them with a copy of our manifesto.”

“It is refreshing to see the Deputy Minister put party politics aside and accept that our ideas would have a positive effect on the way that people are charged for care in Wales. But there is no point in noting that we have good ideas, if they remain only as ideas.”

“Giving people the ability to release some of the equity from their homes would not cost the government a huge amount of money to set up and would be self funding through the use of private sector lenders. Other ideas will make better use of resources and streamline continuing care decisions so that people get the health care they need more quickly.”

“These ideas are not a complete solution to the cost of caring for the elderly but they will make life easier for many and improve existing processes.”