70 Thousand People Face Death with Johnson’s New Plan

14 September 2021

In estimations published by the Guardian, nearly 70,000 people in Britain are likely to die waiting to receive adult social care before Boris Johnson’s changes take effect.

The prime minister revealed details of his long-awaited plan to solve the welfare sector crisis this week. It proposes a 1.25 percent tax on workers and companies. Although the sector has been asking for help from the authorities for more than two years, the strategy has met with a lot of criticism.

Figures and Estimations

Ahead of the bill to be debated in Parliament on Tuesday that would give legal force to the new tax, estimates have found that around 69,950 adults are likely to die awaiting social care before the £86,000 cap is implemented in October 2030.

In addition, the number of deaths due to a lack of social care is estimated at nearly 73,000 adults. And that’s from July 2019 when Johnson said he had a clear plan for the welfare problem, until this month.

These figures were extrapolated from NHS Digital reports. The average annual death rate for 2020 and 2021 has so far been set at 33,577, or 2,798 a month, based on figures from the previous three years.

Criticisms

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health and social care secretary, claimed the statistics reveal a major flaw in the plan – the fact that the thousands of people who need support will feel no benefit from it. By adopting this plan, Tory MPs are imposing a punishing and unfair tax increases on hardworking people without providing any real result for the social care sector.

This week, Johnson won the vote on the new tax, with only five Conservatives voting against the proposal, while 36 abstained. The proposal was to allow the government to make tax changes, which will be carried out under the Health and Social Care levy bill. The tax will be debated and almost certainly passed on Tuesday.