IPPR warns social care at breaking point as unpaid carers surge

A new Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) report warns Britain's social care system is at breaking point as demand grows and the burden of unpaid care swells.

Unpaid carers rose from 1.1 million two decades ago to 1.9 million today, an increase of around 70 percent. Requests for support have risen from 1.8 million in 2015/16 to 2.1 million in 2023/24. The surge is most pronounced among working-age adults, with a 31.5 percent increase among 16 to 64-year-olds requesting care, while requests from people aged 65 and over grew 9 percent. Overall, there has been a 15 percent surge in people seeking some form of adult social care, but only about 2.5 percent more people have received it. These figures underscore how heavily the system relies on unpaid care—typically provided by women—to prop up services that are already under strain.

Analysts warned the pressure is set to worsen as Britain’s population ages and birth rates fall, shrinking the pool of family carers available to plug funding gaps. The IPPR study argues that the social care framework remains underfunded and overly reliant on people who provide unpaid care, often while juggling other responsibilities. The authors call this a precarious system that grows more costly and fragile as demand climbs.

In response to growing concern, ministers announced the launch of an independent commission in January, chaired by Baroness Casey, which will begin work in April and is not expected to publish its final report for three years. Some experts caution the reform timetable could slip beyond 2028, raising the prospect of continued delays even as need rises.

Labour has already moved to reverse some long-standing reforms, scrapping the lifetime cap of 86,000 pounds that a person must pay toward care costs; policy historians say the change has added to the political controversy surrounding care funding. Sir Andrew Dilnot, the architect of earlier reforms, described the move as a tragedy.

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey, who helps care for his disabled son, wrote in the foreword to the IPPR report that both government and politics must rethink how care is funded and delivered: care should be valued for both workers and family carers, and the NHS, care and society must be organized with families at the heart.

Abby Jitendra, author of the IPPR study, emphasized the scale of the challenge: “Millions of us are carers or need care, and this number will surge in the future. But families are being left to navigate a neglected system – paying sky-high costs, sacrificing work to care, and too often going without the support they need. We need to build a care system that works like a public service: universal, affordable, reliable and fair. That means bold reform now – not another decade of drift.” The study calls for an overhaul of how social care is funded and better pay and conditions for carers.