Damian Green, the former Conservative cabinet minister and MP, has been appointed chairman of The Social Care Foundation.
Mr Green takes up the role after almost 30 years in frontline politics during which he served as First Secretary of State and Minister for the Cabinet Office in Theresa May’s government and as MP for Ashford from 1997 until 2024.
As chairman of The Social Care Foundation, Mr Green will seek to inform and shape a much-needed national debate on reform of social care in Britain.
Mr Green said that “successive governments” had “shied away” from making tough – but necessary – decisions to tackle a funding crisis in the sector.
“The recent discovery that one in seven patients in hospital beds ought to be in a social care setting was shocking enough to make headlines, but not remotely news for anyone who knows the care sector,” said Mr Green.
“It’s yet another example of how the care crisis only very occasionally grabs public attention and is one of the reasons successive governments have tried to tackle it, but have shied away from the difficult decisions needed, safe in the knowledge that this crisis will shrink into the background.”
Highlighting an independent commission into adult social care in England, led by Baroness Louise Casey, Mr Green added:
“How we pay for social care is a genuine dilemma that will be one of the most difficult issues facing Baroness Casey. In the end, whatever the commission recommends will need political backing at the highest level. In the best traditions of Yes Minister, the politicians will be told that they are being brave if they address this problem. Maybe now is the right time for bravery.”
Dr Robert Kilgour, the Scottish entrepreneur and founder of The Social Care Foundation, said: “I am delighted that Damian Green has agreed to become its new chairman. At such a challenging and uncertain time for the social care sector, I am confident that Damian will be able to lead TSCF in its stated aim of making a positive contribution to cross-party efforts to support and encourage the reform that all stakeholders agree is much needed and long overdue.”