As my old adversary Boris steered his space-hopper into the sunset following his final stand-up routine outside Number 10, virtually none of the British press spotted the comedy nugget nestled among the metaphor muesli that was his farewell address. It was even omitted entirely from the BBC Fact Check of his largely fictitious farewell speech.
But I’m sure everyone in the social care sector emitted a collective howl of outrage as he delivered the final punchline to his three years as our Prime Minister: ‘We’ve reformed
social care.’
Well, in the true spirit of the pantomime that was Boris Johnson’s term in office: Oh no, you didn’t.
This sector remains in the grip of an existential crisis which has consistently eluded the understanding of a Government that demonstrated every day it had no idea what the social care sector actually did, never mind what was ailing it. Who else would name a tax which delivers sixth sevenths of its income directly to the NHS a ‘social care’ levy?
No, Boris Johnson has not reformed social care. In fact, what is actually happening feels more like dissolution. In July, Skills for Care announced that vacancies in the sector had risen by 52% to 165,000 between July 2021 and July 2022. That means more than 50,000 support workers have left the sector entirely. Many will have finally taken the golden hello from an Amazon distribution hub or been tempted onto a till by a newly-opened Aldi. Some will even have gone to the NHS where, according to our own research Unfair to Care which we commissioned last year, they could earn around 39% or £7k a year more for doing exactly the same job. Sadly, they could even earn 20% more if they decided to join the NHS as a hospital porter.
And this exodus of exhausted and disillusioned support workers will continue unless there is an immediate and significant financial intervention. The so-called social care levy, by the time it trickles down to the care sector, is unlikely to even fund the cap on individual lifetime care costs which, I suspect, Boris believed was the burning issue. He doesn’t seem to have considered the rather crucial question of whether there would be anyone left to deliver that care.
So, my first piece of advice to our new Health and Social Care Minister, Therese Coffey is to reorder her ABC (ambulances, backlogs, care) mission and place care at the front of that list because, without this particular cog in the machine turning as it should, the problems besetting the other areas will continue.
Secondly, whilst social care continues to be funded by cash-starved local authorities, our workforce will never earn a wage commensurate with the skilled and increasingly complex support it provides. And without a workforce strategy that delivers parity with the NHS, recruitment and retention will continue to be both the source and the cause of policy failure. So, as well as getting the ABCs right, Ms Coffey should issue an immediate SOS – sort
out staffing.
In my time with Community Integrated Care, I have genuinely witnessed the very best of humanity. The courage, incredible compassion, professionalism and selflessness that characterises not just the headline events we witnessed during the pandemic, but every time one of our colleagues goes on shift, is extraordinary. But the financial distress that people working in front-line social care roles are experiencing is
heart-breaking.
So, my final piece of advice is simply to genuinely understand and know the value of the real contribution made to society by social care. The Government that manages that will be the first to go some way to reforming it.
Do you agree with Mark’s comments and what’s your message to the new Prime Minister and the Health and Social Care Secretary? share your feedback below.