I went into this thinking that I knew what I was talking about...
DANIELLE DE WOLFE finds out the personal reasons why former cabinet minister Ed Balls wanted to get inside the care crisis in the UK
Ed Balls has held myriad job titles throughout his career.
But while a decade serving as a Labour MP culminated in his appointment as shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, it was the economist’s subsequent stint on Strictly Come Dancing, followed by the documentary series Travels In Trumpland With Ed Balls, that saw him transform into something of a smallscreen star.
Now though, the former politician, 54, has added the title of carer to the list.
New two-part BBC2 documentary, Inside the Care Crisis with Ed Balls, sees the former politician’s professional and personal lives seamlessly converge as he locks down in a North Yorkshire care home mid-pandemic.
Following Ed as he experiences first-hand the trials and tribulations of a sector crippled by chronic underinvestment, he describes the project as “an eye-opener” .
“I think I went into this thinking that I knew what I was talking about,” admits Ed.
“I wanted to see social care from the inside, but I wasn’t expecting to find out that I really didn’t understand the system anywhere near as much as I thought I did – particularly the personal nature of care and how hard it is.”
It’s a subject that hits close to home for him, as the documentary openly discusses his family’s heartbreaking decision to move their mother into a care home in 2018 following her dementia diagnosis some 12 years prior.
“This is not a programme where I go in with an agenda to deliver a lecture,” asserts Ed. “I think the power of these programmes is they allow the viewers to see it for themselves and make up their own minds... It’s not my story or my view; my job is to be there, open it up and allow us all to peer in.”
Reflecting on the moral dilemmas and “maybes” that haunt countless families facing similar predicaments, Ed describes the emotional choice and its aftermath as a “simultaneous feeling of guilt”.
“When they’re finally in care, they’re safer, happier and more secure, and their needs are so much better met without the sort of continual crises which happened at home. People feel guilty that ‘maybe we should have done this earlier’.”
The documentary sees Ed join a carer named John as he undertakes 16 home visits in a single day.
As well as learning about the demands faced by thousands of unpaid carers and the gruelling domiciliary work involved in the job, Ed also found himself confined to Scarborough’s Saint Cecilia’s care home for a two-week period during the pandemic.
Having not seen his own mother for 16 months as a result of care home visiting restrictions, the former cabinet minister followed in the footsteps of carers by living on-site in a bid to reduce the spread of infection.
Undergoing two Covid tests a day, wearing full PPE and explaining the crew went without a sound recordist to “minimise the number of people” involved, he recalls the fact “most staff weren’t medically trained” and “didn’t have any PPE to begin with”.
Ed describes how the onset of Covid emphasised just how “undervalued” many carers continue to feel, having faced harsh criticism over care home infection rates despite receiving a lack of training, equipment and funding.
“I felt humbled how good they are, guilty that I had not properly valued them like I think all of us undervalue them, and slightly appalled that they felt that in such an acute way,” he says.
“Staff members were living with each other because they were so worried about going home and passing it on to their kids or their partners – and then they feel as though they weren’t being clapped for, in fact, if anything, they were being judged. And that is really worrying.”
Inside the Care Crisis with Ed Balls is on BBC2 on Monday at 9pm, and will also be available on BBC iPlayer