Care 2027: A Good Life in Every Neighbourhood

A call for action

There is finally some hope in the UK that things will start to change. The new Prime Minister has called for an end to the damaging policies of privatisation and a shift of power to citizens and communities – and he is the same person who, as Health Secretary in 2010, proposed a National Care Service. That work was never finished. Citizen Network's members have been building the answer to this same question since 2009, and we believe the moment has now come to set it out in full.

Citizen Network is rooted in the North of England, but we are a global community, and many of our allies around the world share the same vision and face the same challenges. Our proposal will be for England, but developed so that allies across the UK and beyond can adapt it to their own circumstances. We will pull our thinking together into a major policy proposal. We will outline the failures of the current system, but our focus is on what should replace it. Our key principles will include:

1. Rights – Strengthen the right to a meaningful life, and end means-testing in adult social care.
2. Power – National rights, local delivery – shift power and resources from Whitehall to neighbourhoods.
3. Belonging – Address the conditions that create need, not just the services that respond to it.
4. Economy – Put care and carers – paid and unpaid – at the heart of a sustainable local economy.
5. Home – Support citizenship and life in ordinary homes, not institutional care.
6. Money – Integrate funding into one coherent, stable and sustainable settlement.
7. Commissioning – Replace competitive commissioning with principles that open care to the whole local economy.

How to contribute

We already have a rich library of resources to build upon and a vast network of members and allies we want to work with – but we also need your evidence.

We invite written submissions of roughly 500 to 2,000 words, addressed to one or more of the seven proposals above, from a named author or organisation. We want evidence of the failure of the current system, and stories of success we can build upon. We are especially keen to receive evidence on rising need: why more young people are entering the system, and what has helped them find a life outside it.

Submissions close at the end of 2026. 

We will publish any relevant submissions over the coming months, and they will inform our full policy proposals, to be published early in 2027 – in time to influence policy-making in England, and to serve our allies elsewhere.

To make a submission, please email: development@citizen-network.org

If you think you can contribute to our work in any other way, please do get in touch.