Rising to the challenge of Care Service

Nicola Sturgeon has vowed to deliver a National Care Service by 2026 – a “fitting legacy” after the trauma of Covid-19.

The task the First Minister has set herself is huge – as things stand, the system has been exposed to be tragically and fundamentally broken at every level.

More than 3000 elderly and vulnerable care home residents paid for this failure with their lives during the pandemic.

Many tens of thousands more continue to suffer daily at the hands of an underfunded, mismanaged and dislocated service incapable of providing the dignity, safety and comfort they deserve.

We reveal today how care home residents were mistakenly injected with salt water rather than a Covid-19 vaccine by overworked NHS nurses at a facility accused of cost cutting and staff shortages.

Up and down the country, similar horror stories are no doubt unfolding behind closed doors every day.

For years, the private sector has been cashing in by running homes on a shoestring while making huge profits at the expense of the taxpayer.

Meanwhile, the NHS has stumbled from one crisis to the next right here in Scotland under our own devolved administration.

The new National Care Service Bill to be introduced at Holyrood next year aims to remove the responsibility for social care from Scotland’s 32 local authorities and combine it under a new centralised body.

The aim is to create a fully integrated system that doesn’t eject patients from hospitals into sub- standard care homes or back into the community without the support they need.

If that is to be achieved, it will require a huge investment of public money – and that will inevitably mean tax rises for all of us.

People will only accept them if they have confidence their money is being well spent rather than squandered or shovelled into the pockets of private companies.

We have an ageing population and with every passing year, the challenge is going to grow rather than recede.

Nicola Sturgeon’s ability to get this right will not just determine the legacy of the pandemic, it will shape her own as First Minister.