# What would it take to fix social care? Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/ifs-zooms-in-the-economy-638796/what-would-it-take-to-fix-social-care Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/ifs-zooms-in-the-economy-638796/what-would-it-take-to-fix-social-care.md Podcast: [IFS Zooms In: The Economy](https://stenobird.com/podcast/ifs-zooms-in-the-economy-638796) Published: 2026-09-17T15:11:20+00:00 Episode link: https://ifs.org.uk/podcasts-explainers-and-calculators/podcasts Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/5ea004d9fbcc383829c71657/e/6aac03185d36baebf14a7d31/media.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/ifs-zooms-in-the-economy-638796/episodes/what-would-it-take-to-fix-social-care Duration seconds: 2640 ## Resource Social care reform has challenged successive governments for decades. Now, the government wants to create a national care service and has launched a new push to find a long-term solution. But how does social care actually work? Who currently pays for it, and why can some people face such large and unpredictable costs? What pressures does the system place on councils? And what would meaningful reform cost? Helen Miller is joined by Andrew Dilnot, former Chair of the Commission on Funding of Care and Support and former IFS Director, and David Phillips, an Associate Director at IFS, to explain the problems with England’s social care system, the options for reform and why finding a solution has proved so difficult. Become a member: https://ifs.org.uk/individual-membership Find out more: https://ifs.org.uk/podcasts-explainers-and-calculators/podcasts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/ifs-zooms-in-the-economy-638796/episodes/what-would-it-take-to-fix-social-care/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/ifs-zooms-in-the-economy-638796/what-would-it-take-to-fix-social-care.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.