Cuts in Social Care
From Health Campaigns Together:
The long-promised Johnson “plan” to deal with the crisis in social care, which he claimed to have had ready-made in the summer of 2019 has been pushed back to the end of the year, while much more limited proposals to “cap” the total costs payable have been published and forced through Parliament within a few days. It will not be a great surprise to readers to find that the “cap” is not all it claims to be – and that most people, especially the poorest who lack savings and a home to sell – will feel no benefit from it at all
The problems of the increasingly dysfunctional, largely privatised social care system have been significantly worsened since Covid and Brexit, with an exodus of staff and increased problems in recruiting to low-paid stressful jobs often at unsocial hours.
A survey for ITV News report on September 2 found 78% of providers who responded said recruiting carers is the hardest it has ever been. Because of the staffing crisis, 95% of providers said they are unable to take on all the new clients in need of their help, while 30% of the 843 providers surveyed said they are handing back some, or all, of their care to local authorities because they can no longer fulfil their contracts. ITV News reported having seen lists of people who are waiting more than three months to have a provider assigned to them.
So while the Health and Care Bill seeks to remove the legal requirement to assess vulnerable patients’ needs prior to discharge, the lack of functional social care is likely to block any more rapid discharge of patients. Tackling part of the problem, and denying the scale and complexity of the issues that have arisen from a decade of under-funding and rounds of ill-conceived legislation limiting international recruitment, still leaves a health and care system deep in crisis.
From Health Campaigns Together, October 2021
Many thanks to Health Campaigns Together for the above update. Much more info can be found in the Health Campaigns Together monthly bulletin here, and also on the links we have collated below
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From national KONP:
Campaign for a National Care, Support and Independent Living Service (NaCSILS): SEVEN DEMANDS
England’s social care is broken. 26% fewer people are supported than in 2010, while demand soars. People face isolation, indignity, maltreatment, neglect, barriers to inclusion and independent living. Care is marketised and privatised. Many small providers have folded; care homes are increasingly managed by unstable corporates and hedge funds that often deliver poor care in large institutional settings while extracting massive offshore profits. Disabled and elderly people who need social care and support face high charges, leaving thousands in poverty. Care and support doesn’t reflect users’ needs or wishes. Staff wages, training and conditions are at rock bottom – turnover exceeds 30%. 8 million unpaid, overworked family carers, including children and elderly relatives, provide vital support.
We demand:
1. National Care Support and Independent Living Service (NaCSILS)
The Government shall have responsibility for and duty to provide a National Care and Supported Living Service to provide care, independent and supported living, adopting into English Law Articles from the UN Convention on rights of disabled people that establish choice and control, dignity and respect, at the heart of person-centred planning.
2. Fully funded through government investment and progressive taxation, free at the point of need and fully available to everyone living in this country.
3. Publicly provided and publicly accountable: The NaCSILS will have overall responsibility for publicly provided residential homes and service providers and, where appropriate, for the supervision of not-for-profit organisations and user-led cooperatives funded through grants allocated by the NaCSILS. A long-term strategy would place an emphasis on de-institutionalisation and community-based independent and supported living. All provision will deliver to NaCSILS national standards. There will be no place for profiteering and the market in social care will be brought to an end.
4. Mandated nationally, locally delivered: The Government will be responsible for developing within the principles of co-production, a nationally mandated set of services that will be democratically run, designed, and delivered locally. Local partnerships would be led by stakeholders who are delivering, monitoring, referring to or receiving supported services or budgets, e.g. organisations representing disabled people (DPOs), older people, and people who use mental health and other services, in partnership with local authorities and the NHS.
5. Identify and address needs of informal carers, family and friends providing personal support:
The NaCSILS will ensure a comprehensive level of support freeing up family members from personal and/or social support tasks so that the needs of those offering informal support, e.g. family and friends, are acknowledged in ways which value each person’s lifestyles, interests, and contributions.
6. National NaCSILS employee strategy fit for purpose: The NaCSLS standards for independent and supported living will be underpinned by care and support staff or personal assistants who have appropriate training, qualifications, career structure, pay and conditions to reflect the skills required to provide support services worthy of a decent society.
7. Support the formation of a taskforce on independent and supported living with a meaningful influence, led by those who require independent living support, from all demographic backgrounds and regions. This would also make recommendations to address wider changes in public policy.
Keep Our NHS Public, Socialist Health Association, July 2020
A pdf version of the above seven demands is here
A motion for your organisation:
This (organisation/party branch/union branch etc) demands the Government establish and new National Care, Support and Independent Living Service (NaCSILS) which is:
• Publicly funded, free at the point of use
• Publicly provided, not for profit
• Nationally mandated but designed and delivered locally
• Co- produced with service users and democratically accountable
• Underpinned by staff whose pay & conditions reflects true value and skills
• Designed to meet the needs of informal carers
• And sets up a taskforce on independent living
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From NaCSILS:
End Social Care Disgrace is campaigning for a national care, support and independent living service (NaCSILS). It is a unique alliance seeking to bring together disabled and older people, unpaid carers, health campaigners, care and support workers and trade unions to put Social Care in the Spotlight and pursue radical change. Keep Our NHS Public is fully committed to the campaign. Find out more about the campaign at its website nacsils.co.uk
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Health and Care Bill 2021:
Written evidence was submitted to MPs appointed to examine the Bill during committee stage (late summer / autumn 2021). 83 written submissions were sent to this committee, and these can all be viewed on the UK Parliament website here . One of the submissions is from the British Association of Social Workers, and this is linked here as it provides an important insight into concerns re future health and social care provision, from a professional social work perspective.
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The true scale of the crisis:
If you still vote @Conservatives with these statistics, we have no words….
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End the Social Care Crisis: Petition 2022 – 23
The wording of this important petition is included here for reference, although registration on the petition itself may no longer be open
We demand that the Prime Minister must act now to:
- Make social care free at the point of use for all those who need it;
- Stop reassessing people with long-term health conditions that cannot improve, just to see if they still qualify for benefits;
- Empower people who need care to be able to choose the type of care and support they want;
- Provide a trained workforce who get a living wage and decent work conditions;
- Increase benefits by the rate of inflation every year;
- Provide a service which gives excellent support for unpaid carers;
- Ensure we have a publicly provided care and support service of which we can all be proud.
Many people in our society are being put at risk because the care system is failing them, excluding them from our society and is a disgrace.
Many disabled and older people who need adult social care don’t get the care and support they need, because they cannot afford the care charges. This leads to disabled people relying on family members and friends to provide unpaid care. Some of these carers are as young as 5 years old.
Millions of disabled and older people who are paying the charges for their care and support are being forced into poverty and debt, as the care charges are so high. Some of these people are being pursued by their local authority for the care charges debt they owe and being taken to court. Unlike NHS medical care, social care has to be paid for.
Many disabled and older people who use adult social care have no choice or control over how the care system meets their needs and how they live. Life for some disabled and older people who use adult social care is a living nightmare.
Age UK reports that between March 2017 and February 2019, about 626,701 people had their requests for social care turned down by their local authority. A study into UK poverty in 2020 showed that three in ten of the 13 million disabled people in the UK live in poverty: 3.8 million adults and 300,000 children. Also, a further 3 million non-disabled people who are in poverty live in a household where someone is disabled. This means that nearly half of the 14 million people in poverty are affected by disability in some way.
Many care workers are on zero hours contracts, have to undertake training in their own time, receive less than the real living wage and are only paid statutory sick pay if they cannot work due to illness. Carers who support people in their own homes, are not paid for their travel from one person’s home to the next. The care sector is short of 165,000 staff, because pay and conditions are so bad, leaving 500,000 waiting for social care assessment or support.
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The petition may be signed here: https://keepournhspublic.com/petition-social-care/
The wording of this important petition is included here for reference, although registration on the petition itself may no longer be open
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Links
The Guardian (13th February 2023) Patients in England not collecting NHS prescriptions because of cost
The Lowdown (24th September 2022) Controversial plans to shift NHS funding to social care on hold
The Guardian (21st September 2022) Adult social care in England is in crisis, say Tory council leaders
The Lowdown (8th September 2022) Latest policy ideas on social care: up to the challenge?
The Guardian (3rd July 2022) Labour to aim to launch national care service inspired by creation of NHS
The Guardian (17th April 2022) Women in England’s poorest areas die younger than in most OECD countries
New Economics Foundation (18th February 2022) UNIVERSAL QUALITY SOCIAL CARE:Transforming adult social care in England A great paper from NEF & women’s budget grp on a new settlement for social care. Mirrors NaCSILS programme. It also shows how the money could be ready raised to fund it.
The Guardian (15th February 2022) After a week in the job, I couldn’t stop smiling’: the joy – and heartbreak – of life as a care worker
Morning Star (11th February 2022) Thousands to protest against the rising cost-of-living crisis across Britain
Health Services Journal (13th January 2022) Hospital trust launches as social care provider
The Lowdown (3rd December 2021) Adult social care – still kicking the can down the road
Tribune (19th November 2021) Outsourcing is Killing Social Care
The lowdown (18th October 2021) The privatisation of social care
The Lowdown (18th October 2021) Care worker shortage will increase NHS waiting lists
The Guardian (14th October 2021) Austerity in England linked to more than 50,000 extra deaths in five years
The Guardian (13th October 2021) NHS faces beds crisis as care homes stop taking patients from hospitals
BBC News (13th October 2021) Care staff shortage worse than before pandemic, study shows
The Guardian (14th September 2021) Multinational care companies are the real winners from Johnson’s new tax – article by Prof Allyson Pollock
The Guardian (12th September) Social care plan will help just a tenth of UK’s older people in need
National KONP (9th September 2021) Government fails to offer any plans to transform ‘social care’
The Guardian (7th September 2021) Boris Johnson’s plan to ‘fix the crisis in social care’ is no game changer
The Guardian (4th September 2021) Care workers in England leaving for Amazon and other better-paid jobs
The Guardian (24th August 2021) Volunteers may be required in staffing shortfall at English care homes
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