Increasing alcohol taxes in Wednesday’s UK Budget would show real intent to deliver Andy Burnham’s vision for a new state-funded National Care Service, boosting government funds while reducing future care demand.
Increasing alcohol taxes reduces alcohol consumption and with it the care needs it generates. Alcohol contributes to brain injury, brain damage, dementias, peripheral nerve damage, physical injuries, liver disease, cardiovascular disease and pancreatic damage.
Burnham has focused especially on dementia care, inspired by his late father’s Alzheimer’s. The cost of dementia care in the UK is currently over £17bn a year. An aging population means this figure is expected to double over the next 15 years, according to the Alzheimer’s Society, an NGO. Dementia patients already make up the majority in around a third of residential care homes.
Drinking more than 210ml of alcohol a week increases the incidence of dementia by 1%, a Lancet Commission said in 2020. Cutting alcohol consumption would also reduce other dementia risk factors like traumatic brain injury, high blood pressure and depression which contribute another 9% of dementia cases.
These care costs can be ruinous for individuals and families. Care can cost as much as £80,000 a year, an amount drawn from a patient or spouse’s savings until they have less than £23,000 left. Patients’ households currently pay nearly two-thirds of dementia care costs and deliver large amounts of unpaid care.
Pooling these costs of care makes sense for everyone, meaning an end to a grim lottery that can mean a random loss of life savings. Anyone who has squirreled away more than £23,000 stands to benefit, with potentially larger savings for those who have more in the bank. Burnham’s care plan is likely to appeal most to people with assets to lose despite its socialist framing.
Setting up the care service is a monumental challenge. Burnham has ordered a commission to report next year on how it might work. Reducing long term care demand and increasing government income with an alcohol tax rise would be a real sign of intent. ■