Date published: December 1, 2021
Shared Lives care features in government social care White Paper
Today, the government launched the long-awaited White Paper for social care reform.
We are delighted that the many conversations we’ve had with colleagues across the sector and with Department of Health and Social Care, mean that Shared Lives care could be ‘scaled up’ example of social care, offering “greater flexibility and more community-based care” (p46). In addition, Mollie and Mae, who were matched together by Shared Lives South West, have been featured as an example of what the future of care services could be like – their story is on the innovation pages of the White Paper’s website.
Mollie Draper is a passionate advocate of Shared Lives, after moving in with Mae Playdell-Pearce, a Shared Lives carer, approved by Shared Lives South West earlier this year. Here you can read about the transforming effect of Shared Lives on the Department of Health and Social Care’s website: Mollie’s story
What does the White Paper mean for Shared Lives and Homeshare members?
The £30m Innovative Models of Care Programme will support councils to embed & mainstream “innovative models of care.”
Alex Fox, CEO says on his blog, “We’ve discussed at length our learning on how to scale innovation with the White Paper team. We hope to see some strong bids from councils and Shared Lives and Homeshare providers for that money and we will be talking with local areas about how to make best use of this rare opportunity for change.
“The debate about how to pay and who pays for social care will ebb and flow, but meanwhile people will continue to live in and use social care services and it is the quality, the values and the creativity of those services which will make those experiences happy or miserable. The UK is a world leader in forms of support which are expert at bringing people together and bringing people joy – this needs to be the moment we embed them at the heart of the new system.”
The impact of Shared Lives care
You can also watch Mollie and Mae’s interview below, and the incredible things this kind of social care service enables people to do – on our YouTube channel – huge thanks to Dawn Gillingwater who interviewed and filmed them at very short notice.
