Brits will pay more for social care for longer after the Government delayed a planned cap on costs.
Under Boris Johnson's long-delayed plan for care homes, an £86,000 lifetime cap on how much anyone would need to pay for care was due to kick in from October 2023.
Currently, people have to fund the full cost of their social care until their assets - including the value of their houses - hits £23,250.
Former prime ministers Liz Truss and Boris Johnson both committed to the social care cap.
But today Chancellor Jeremy Hunt kicked that plan down the road for two years in his Autumn Statement - claiming it would give councils more time to prepare.
He said he was announcing extra funding for social care of up to £2.8bn next year and £4.7bn the year after, and would raise the NHS budget by £3.3bn in each of the next two years.
But Boris Johnson rolled his eyes and shook his head when the Chancellor announced the social care reform delay.
And Mr Hunt warned NHS managers would have to tackle “waste and inefficiency”, adding: "We want Scandinavian quality alongside Singaporean efficiency".
The delay means Brits are stuck paying higher costs when they need social care - with the chance any cap could be delayed even further.
Defending the move ahead of the Budget statement, the government claimed councils had pleaded for a delay because they were not ready.
But the body for councils in England hit back - suggesting it needed a delay because there is not enough money from the government.
A survey of council chiefs by the Local Government Association in June found 86% thought some or all care reforms should be delayed - and 98% were not confident government funding would be enough.
The County Councils Network had welcomed reports of a delay but warned the funding must not be “used as a saving”.
Spokesperson Martin Tett said the reforms had been “impossible to implement in the timescales without making services worse” after councils faced “severe workforce and inflation-fuelled financial pressures”.
Warning of £3.7billion in extra costs, he added: “The funding committed next year must be retained by councils and reprioritised.”
The Alzheimer’s Society previously insisted the Government “must not roll back on the care cap”.
Associate director of advocacy Mark MacDonald said: “This social care reform was a crucial first step to tackle catastrophic care costs, limiting the amount people had to pay towards their care.
“People with dementia are the biggest users of social care – at least 70% of care home users have dementia – and this delay would be a damaging blow at a time when many of them will be struggling with bills and need action on the cost of care too.”
Silver Voices director Dennis Reed said: “There is a grim inevitability about the likely delay in implementing the social care cap; the history of the last decade has been one of proposed legislation being suspended and then scrapped, leaving the social care crisis to get worse.
“The grandiose claim of Boris Johnson that he ‘fixed’ social care was always bogus but there were two elements to his policy.”
Social care is suffering an exodus of staff, with the workforce shrinking last year for the first time ever.
Experts fear the service is on the brink after vacancies increased by 52% in 2021/22, leaving 165,000 posts unfilled.
Skills for Care’s annual report last month revealed there was a workforce of 1.62million last year , down 50,000 on 2020, amid Tory cuts and poor pay.
Around 400,000 carers quit last year. While many moved to a different job in the sector, 37% left it altogether.
The Mirror has launched the Fair Care for All campaign to demand staff get proper pay, training and progression.
Workers with five years’ experience were last year paid just 7p an hour more than those with less than a year’s.
