We must fix our social care system now says NHS chief

WHOLESALE reform of social care can be delayed no longer, the head of the NHS in England has warned.

Sir Simon Stevens said coronavirus had shone a ‘very harsh spotlight’ on the failings of the care system – and demanded politicians fix it within a year.

He said we should use the pandemic to ‘properly resource and reform the way in which social care works in this country’ and added that the country does not ‘have a fair and properly resourced adult social care system with a proper set of workforce supports’.

Nearly 30,000 people died in care homes as a result of coronavirus in the first three months of the crisis – 20,000 directly from Covid-19 and another 10,000 who are thought to have missed out on vital care because of lockdown.

Experts last night said the ‘threadbare’ sector – neglected, underfunded and poorly staffed for decades – simply was not ready for the pandemic. Politicians have long accepted social care is broken, but for years have failed to deliver on promises to fix it.

Boris Johnson pledged on his first day in power last July to fix social care ‘ once and for all’. He said his team had ‘a clear plan’ to ‘give every older person the dignity and security they deserve’. But nearly a year on, the Prime Minister is yet to provide any details.

He was not the first to promise reform – Tony Blair said in 1997 he would end the scandal in which ‘the only way pensioners can get long-term care is by selling their home’. Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May made similar pledges – and none delivered.

Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said last night: ‘The lives of thousands of older people and hundreds of valiant care workers might have been saved if any recent government had taken action, but instead one by one they all walked away.’ Sir Simon, speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show yesterday, said the time for action is long overdue.

He added: ‘I would hope by the time we are sitting down this time next year... that we have actually, as a country, been able to decithose sively answer the question of how are we going to fund and provide high-quality social care for my parents’ generation.’

The Daily Mail has been campaigning for an urgent solution to the care scandal – particularly for with dementia, who make up two thirds of care residents.

The crisis has built in recent months, with chaotic staffing in homes seeing agency workers spread the virus between different care institutions.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman last night said a plan is due – but did not give a timescale for its publication.

■ The NHS may have to deliver its biggest-ever flu immunisation this winter as a second wave of coronavirus remains ‘entirely possible’, Sir Simon said. People needed to get the flu vaccine to ease pressure on the health service in the colder months, he explained.

‘Lives could have been saved’

‘IF any good is to come of this [pandemic], we must resolve once and for all the way social care works in this country.’

So said NhS chief Sir Simon Stevens in an impassioned plea yesterday for politicians to stop talking about fixing our crumbling care system and start doing something about it.

For decades the sector has been the poor relation of the NhS and coronavirus has thrown this apartheid into stark relief.

While a ring of protection was thrown around hospitals, residential care homes were effectively abandoned to their fate – starved of testing and PPe, and many were without viable isolation facilities.

Worse still, hospitals discharged 25,000 elderly patients into nursing homes in the early weeks of the crisis without testing the vast majority of them for Covid. The result was inevitable.

There were almost 30,000 excess care home deaths in the three months to June 12. Two-thirds were from Covid, the rest almost certainly because they didn’t receive the care they deserved. No one planned for this carnage to happen. But it is a by-product of the way elderly care has been grotesquely neglected for so long.

We have a piecemeal, underfunded system with low-paid staff and often inadequate medical support. That the welfare of our most vulnerable should be treated so shabbily is a matter of national shame.

Outside No 10 on his first day in power last July, Boris Johnson assured us he had a clear plan, to ‘give every older person the dignity and security they deserve’. There’s still no sign of this promise being fulfilled.

Yes, he’s dealing with a major health crisis. But as Sir Simon said, the legacy of Covid must be urgent and wholesale reform.

There is certainly no shortage of reports for ministers to draw on. Successive governments have spent 20 years examining this issue – then kicking it into the long grass.

It’s time for the prevaricating to stop.