Where is plan to fix the crisis in dementia care?

I am a Trustee at the Abbeyfield (Loughborough) Society but the views expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Society.

In July 2019, having been elected Prime Minister, Boris Johnson said: “We will fix the crisis in social care once and for all, with a clear plan we have prepared.”

A few weeks ago, I wrote to Loughborough MP Jane Hunt reminding her of Mr Johnson’s statement and suggesting that now might be a good time to publish this plan.

Her reply was that there will be a “Green paper” on adult social care in due course.

In other words, there was no plan and there is no plan, “to fix the crisis in social care”.

However, this government does have one clear plan and that is to restrict immigration after January 2021.

No one disagrees with a country’s right to control its own borders but by restricting immigration to those whose earnings are in excess of £26,500 we are depriving ourselves of thousands of people who are willing and able to work in our care homes. The Home Secretary, Priti Patel, defines care workers as “low skilled”.

In my opinion, care work in England is undervalued, underpaid, emotionally draining, physically exhausting and requires a great deal of emotional intelligence. To say that it is “low skilled” is insulting to all those people currently working in our care sector.

Goodhart and Pradhan, two research economists, state, “ageing is going to require increasing amounts of labour to be redirected towards elderly care at exactly the same time that the labour force starts shrinking”, (we live in an ageing society).

The care sector currently employs 350,000 immigrant workers but still has 8% of vacancies unfilled.

So, at the very time when we will need more people to work in our care homes, we are deliberately going to prevent overseas workers from coming to work here. Where are the care workers to come from?

Part of the solution has to be a properly funded care sector with decent wages and working conditions for carers, recognised qualifications and a proper career structure for them.

Even if this did happen, we would still have a labour shortage in the care sector.

Dementia is an illness just like cancer, obesity and heart disease and should be treated as such. Our policy makers are currently dealing with the problems of the pandemic but they ought to be devoting some time and thought to another looming emergency.

Frank Fay, Upper Green