‘National Care Service needs to begin now’

‘The crisis is just too severe for it to be put off until after the next general election,’ public service union Unison tells PM

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The call came as a review into the sector is expected to claim that successive governments have been “asleep at the wheel” in respect of the sector.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has promised the establishment of a national care service, funded in part by changes to the state pension uprating, but not until after the next general election, which will likely be in 2029.

He told MPs today that details of the service would be included in his forthcoming 10-year plan, which he said would be unveiled before the end of the year.

Baroness Louise Casey, who has been conducting the review, also highlighted failings during the Covid pandemic, which was allowed to “spread like wildfire” in the care system, as “a national shame.”

Unison head of social care Gavin Edwards said: “Baroness Casey is right to say the sector is built for buck-passing.

“Care companies criticise councils, councils accuse government, and ministers rebuke the care sector — as the Conservatives did during Covid.

“It’s those who need care, their families and staff whose pay has been slashed over decades who suffer. The blame game has to stop. What’s needed is a national care service that delivers for all and puts people before profit.

“Delivery of the national care service needs to begin now. The crisis is just too severe for it to be put off until after the next general election.”

Baroness Casey, in a speech to the National Children and Adult Services Conference in Liverpool, called for “a new settlement for care.”

She said: “The Covid-19 inquiry took apart the argument that a ‘protective ring’ had been thrown around care homes during the pandemic.

“Many old people died without their loved ones by their side. Many care workers left their jobs after what they had seen.

“It is a national shame that this was allowed to happen. It should never happen again.

“Successive governments have been asleep at the wheel. In research we’re publishing today the lack of ‘stewardship’ of social care comes through clearly. No-one is in charge.

“Together, we can build a new settlement for care. One based on values I still believe this country shares: decency, contribution and a duty to care for our neighbours, our loved ones and ourselves.”

A report by the Covid-19 inquiry last month stated that the care sector was “an afterthought” and dismissed then Tory health secretary Matt Hancock’s claim, made in May 2020, about a so-called protective ring around care homes at the start of the pandemic as “unfounded.”

A report, commissioned by Baroness Casey’s team and carried out by the Nuffield Trust and the Institute for Government think tanks, described adult social care in England as “a complex system where responsibilities are spread between central government departments and across a range of arm’s-length bodies; between national and local government; and between government and a vast array of non-public sector providers.”

It added: “Decision-making processes can be opaque and a single point of responsibility for overall oversight and stewardship is lacking.

“The consequences of this complexity and lack of clarity were highlighted during the Covid-19 crisis, and while that event forced some positive change, there remains a fundamentally fragmented system that lacks a coherent sense of direction.”

The report points out that England is the only one of the UK’s four nations with no mandatory register of care workers.

The current make-up of the sector means private providers dominate in a pattern that has “emerged in a largely uncontrolled and unintended way.”

Unlike NHS care, social care is not free at the point of use and high costs sometimes mean people are forced to sell their homes to pay for what they need.

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