Brighton and Gatwick law firm Martin Searle Solicitors launches its annual ‘Social Care Funding Matters’ campaign, offering free legal advice to families, lawyers and professional deputies

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Martin Searle Solicitors, now in its twenty-first year, is a campaigning law firm  committed to access to justice. Throughout June 2025, the Community Care Law team at Martin Searle Solicitors are running their campaign Social Care Funding Matters.  This is to raise awareness about current problems around social care funding.

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Their Community Care Law Team will provide free advice to individuals about how to access social care funding and the services they are entitled to under the Care Act. This advice is also relevant to professionals such as accountants, financial advisors, private client lawyers and professional deputies who assist their clients with social care funding disputes.

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On Thursday 26 June 2025, from 12noon to 1pm, Martin Searle Solicitors will run a free virtual seminar on ‘What Happens When P’s Money Runs Out?’. The webinar is aimed at Professional Deputies, private client lawyers, and other advisers who work in the social care legal sector.

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Please reserve your place using the following link – Community Care Q&A: What Happens When P’s Money Runs Out.

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Their Community Care Law team are also offering a free 30 minute confidential advice call regarding planning and paying for care legal advice. The helpline will take place on Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout June 2025 from 3.30pm to 5.30pm on 01273 609911.

To book a call-back from one of their team, click here.

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On their website they have produced a series of free factsheets, case studies, and FAQs covering the law around paying for care home fees. These include how to avoid selling your home to pay for care and the rules that affect what care funding you receive.

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In May 2025, the Casey Commission began its work on setting out a model of recommendations for the introduction of a National Care Service. When this is concluded in 2026, they will move on to the second phase, reporting back in 2028, with longer term recommendations for the transformation and funding of adult social care.

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Cate Searle, Director and Head of Community Care at Martin Searle Solicitors, says.

“We are providing free support and resources throughout June to help people access the social care they are entitled to.  I welcome the fact that this vital subject is being reconsidered, as despite multiple government announcements over the last fifteen years, none of these proposals have been implemented. Ten years have now passed since the Care Act imposed very clear legal duties on Social Services, yet people still need to instruct legal representation to ensure that their rights to basic social care provision are being upheld. “

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Unfortunately, accessing adequate social care provision remains very challenging.  A cross-party group of MPs reported in May 2025 that the costs of doing nothing would mean 2 million people aged over 65 and 1.5 million people of working age would not get the care that they need.

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The current system places huge avoidable financial pressures on the NHS and local authorities – the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services found in November 2024 that 81% of Local Authorities expect to overspend on social care, whilst in December 2024 Carers UK estimated that up to 10 million unpaid carers in England and Wales are working for free to prop up a failing care system.

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Cate Searle, added: “The social care system remains hugely under-resourced after fifteen      years of austerity measures. Many people who should qualify for social care support find that they are turned away, or kept on a waiting list for months, or experience cuts to their existing packages. The chronic shortage of people willing to work in adult social care is causing the NHS knock on costs of almost £2bn a year.

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We urgently need a significant investment in social care staff, services and support for unpaid carers to ensure that the current social care system does not collapse. This should be as much a priority as saving the NHS, as social care provision and funding affects all of us.”

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For more information about the campaign, please visit https://www.ms-solicitors.co.uk/social-care-funding-matters/