Care problems pre-date Covid

The Prime Minister’s comments about care home failings leading to excess deaths [‘’Slap in the face’ from PM as 405 die in care homes’, Gazette, July 9] led to predictable howls of rage from Care England, representing home owners and unions representing their staff, who were not criticised.

The facts we know are that 56% of care homes suffered Covid 19 deaths - that means 44% didn’t, so what did they do different? We heard much on television about inadequate supplies of PPE in care homes and yet on one news bulletin a care home manager showed us ample supplies of PPE they had in store, so not everyone was short of PPE; some had clearly planned ahead. From other news and in your

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paper, we know that some care homes refused to admit untested patients from hospitals; we even heard that one hospital threatened to report a care home to the Care Quality Commission for refusing to admit untested patients, forcing it to back down and admit Covid-19 to the home. What seems clear then is that whatever the “guidance” may have been, almost half of care homes had adequate supplies of PPE, made their own assessment of the risk of admitting untested patients and suffered no deaths from Covid-19. The other 56% appears not to have done the same.

There are clearly problems with the care sector; we knew that before Covid came along. It is fragmented, part privately run, part publicly run, and much of it publicly funded. Either way, too many staff are minimally paid and work across the care home sector with jobs in different homes; now Covid-19 has really highlighted the problem.

The question is whether we, as taxpayers, are prepared to recognise that a tax and National Insurance scheme set up over 70 years ago cannot cope with a very different and much older population.

Should it be reorganised and are we prepared to dig deeper into our pockets to pay for it?

I’ll start by volunteering the suggestion that NI contributions should not cease at age 65.

I’m still working at 71; I pay tax but no NI, but why shouldn’t I? I’m still working and earning after all.

The answer is the system was set up for an era when everyone stopped work at 65 and died soon thereafter; like the health service, the social care sector has stumbled along since its inception.

They’ve both been underfunded from the start and any attempt to improve their efficiency is doomed to failure as the whole thing turns into a political football.

We should stop, redesign from basics what we want health and social care provision to be and then work out how we get there from where we are and how we fund it.

Bob Britnell

Orchard Close, Canterbury