The Conservatives and adult social care

This chapter reviews the Conservatives’ approaches to adult social care, moving from the legacy of the Coalition government to that of the Conservative governments since 2015. During this period, there have been a series of broken promises and a tendency to kick a number of key matters into the long grass. Sometimes this has seemed a pragmatic reaction to challenging world events and to the political complexities of these issues. At other times, there have been glimpses of traditional Conservative ideology around topics such as inheritance, the role of family, the needs of business, tax cuts and so on. Despite a pessimistic national picture, there are a number of grounds for optimism in more local, bottom-up approaches and in the increased visibility of social care during and following the pandemic.