The new Prime Minister will speed up the Casey Commission review but gave no date for change and no answer on who pays
Andy Burnham has warned that the NHS ‘will collapse’ if social care is not reformed, but admitted he cannot say when change will come. The new Prime Minister gave the warning in his first major interview since entering Number 10 on 20 July.
Speaking to Laura Kuenssberg on BBC Panorama, Burnham said: ‘If we don’t do it the NHS will collapse under the weight of trying to care for people who’ve really not needed to end up in the NHS system.’
He said he would put ‘whatever political capital I have into fixing broken social care’ and would not want to leave office without ‘substantial change’. But pressed on whether a new system would arrive before the next election, he said he ‘couldn’t put a timeline on it right here, right now’.
A faster review, not a plan
Burnham is due to make a speech on adult social care on Wednesday. BBC News understands he will stop short of unveiling a new system. Instead he will announce he is speeding up the Casey Commission, the independent review examining how to fix social care.
The commission, chaired by crossbench peer Baroness Louise Casey, was launched in April 2025 under the previous government. Its terms of reference set final recommendations for 2028. Burnham told the BBC: ‘Social care was on a longer path and I have brought it straight forward.’ The commission is sponsored by the Department of Health and Social Care but operates independently.
Who pays remains the open question
In England, anyone with savings above £23,250 gets no help with care costs from their council. A planned £86,000 lifetime cap on personal care costs, set out in the government’s charging reform plans, was scrapped by the previous government in July 2024, according to a House of Commons Library briefing.
Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of the King’s Fund, said the current system leaves many people without the care they need. King’s Fund figures show one in seven people aged 65 and over face lifetime care costs above £100,000. The think tank estimates reform options would cost low billions a year on top of existing spending. The King’s Fund is funded mainly by donations, legacies, and investment income, not government grants.
Tougher rules on benefits
Burnham also said the country must ‘get serious’ about getting the welfare bill down. He told the BBC he might ‘increase the conditions on people required to receive benefits’, The Independent reported. Support could be made conditional on taking up opportunities such as work where appropriate.
He said some young people in the system had been let down because support was not there for them earlier. No specific new policies were set out.
A problem governments keep dropping
Burnham has been here before. As Health Secretary from 2009 to 2010 he proposed a National Care Service and floated a compulsory levy to fund it. Successive governments have since promised reform and abandoned it, with the funding question never settled.
Reactions so far split on familiar lines. The Liberal Democrats have offered cross-party consensus, the Conservatives say any solution must be fair to people who have saved, and Reform UK opposes certain funding models.
The BBC’s original report did not include the £21.4bn councils spent on adult social care in 2023/24, or the record of reform plans abandoned since the Dilnot Commission.
If we don’t do it the NHS will collapse.
In the same interview Burnham said he would be prepared to call out Donald Trump to defend Britain’s national interest. He also confirmed his rescue dog Axel will stay up north rather than move into Number 10, joking the nation ‘wouldn’t thank’ him for disturbing Larry the Cat, as BBC footage shows.
Burnham’s Wednesday speech is expected to cover social care alongside youth unemployment and devolution, with the Casey Commission’s first-phase findings due later this year.
