Yes, absolutely. I am considering them. In fact, I shall go further and say that I am attracted to the insurance and contribution model. There are many different potential details in how such a model can be delivered, but I am very much taking that Select Committee report into consideration as we draft the Green Paper.
Alongside ensuring that the funding is in place, we need to make sure that we support carers. In June, we published the carers action plan, a two-year package of support for carers to ensure that they are properly recognised, helped and valued in a way that supports their health and wellbeing. The Green Paper will go further and propose how society can strengthen support for carers as a vital part of a sustainable health and social care system.
The guiding principles behind the Green Paper will be sevenfold: first, improving the quality and safety of care; secondly, integrated care, with the NHS and social care systems operating as one; thirdly, giving the highest possible control to those receiving support; fourthly, better practical support for families and carers; fifthly, a sustainable funding model supported by a diverse, vibrant and stable market; sixthly, greater security for those born with care needs or who develop those needs in later life; and seventhly, a valued NHS and social care workforce. Those will be the principles behind the Green Paper, and I hope that we can build cross-party support for it.
As a society, we need to rise to the unprecedented social care challenge that our generation faces. For the sake of future generations, we must act now to build a better and more sustainable social care system, in the short term and the long term, that ensures that people
are properly valued: a system both for those in need of care and for their carers, a system that supports carers—not only those who work in care homes but those who care for loved ones at home—and with the goal of building a sustainable health and social care system of which we can all be proud.