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There are just over 300 words in Labour’s manifesto, about social care.
Lots of blah, blah and;
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Establish a National Care Service…. first seen in Jeremy Corbyn’s manifesto
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‘Home first services’… presumably an expansion of the domiciliary care sector
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Local partnerships with the NHS to facilitate discharge… we’re doing that
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An agreement to set fair pay and conditions, plus training standards… no mention of funding
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Train social care workers in basic health care… ‘basic’ is not a word used in clinical settings...
.... fundamental maybe? Healthcare support workers? Dunno.
And, some gobbledygook at the end;
‘… we will build consensus for the longer-term reform …
... we will explore how we best manage and support an ageing population…
... integration with the NHS can be secured; how to best support working age disabled adults; and how to move to a more preventative system.’
Flimflam? Actually, no. It’s very cunning.
The clue is in ‘we will build a consensus’.
There’s only one way to do that, cross party. Try to make it stick and that’s a Royal Commission…
... which is what I'm pretty sure we will see in the King’s speech.
Royal Commissions are major public inquiries established by HMG to investigate and report on specific issues. They’re appointed by the Monarch on the advice of the government.
They’ve been chugging along since the early 19th century. Originally focusing on stuff like public health and penal reform.
Guess what…
Between 1997 and ’99, there was a Royal Commission on… wait for it… drum roll please…
… Long-Term Care for the Elderly!
Trah-lah... lead by the academic Sir Stewart Sutherland. Tony Blair’s doing.
Their outcomes are not binding. The key recommendations and the upshot of Sutherland;
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Free Personal Care: The most significant… funded through general taxation. Accepted only in Scotland. HMG said the cost would be too high and instead chose to focus on ‘reforms’… and they continued with means-tested support for long-term care, which is why we are in the mess we’re in now.
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For other types of care, such as accommodation costs, a means-tested support system was recommended to help those with limited financial resources… we sort-of have that now and is what the Dilnot report focussed on, to make it more equitable. Theresa May stumble over it, Bojo promised but never delivered.
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National Standards: the establishment of national standards for care to ensure consistent quality and fairness across the country. Twenty five years on… we still don’t have any.
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Integration of Services: the comprehensive approach recommended by the commission was never realised.
In today’s money, all that cost £4.26m.
So, Labour’s big idea is to have another go. Terms of reference?
I’d bet the farm;
- Funding mechanisms
- Means testing
- Workforce, recruitment, training and remuneration
- Integration
I am absolutely stone-cold sure because these are the four things that are the four pillars that support the services and the four issues politicians don’t want to raise taxes for. But the public might...
There are about 900,000 frail elderly people, in the system that no longer get the care they need because local authorities don’t have enough money to go round and have raised their eligibility criteria.
About 17,000 older people a year sell their homes to pay for care. That figure is up 45% up since 2000.
Having doubts, not being sure what to do, how to go about things, dealing with problems and thinking about them, is not the same as procrastination.
Being worried, concerned, scratching yer head, is not the same as procrastination.
Watching other people try and fix an issue and failing, is not the same as procrastination.
Knowing what needs to be done, not doing it. Pretending not to know and embarking on a needless expensive journey of discovery to find out what you already know is procrastination... and is cowardice... and
... in the case of politics, a fraud on the public.
Procrastination is a dereliction of duty.
Someday, is not a day of the week. Today is the day that people will go without care, go without a vital drink. Fall and not be picked up. Sell their home. Be lonely and give up.
Disguising what they intended to do, with a misleading manifesto is a deception and a swindle. Had Labour made it clear, they know the roof would have come-in on them for dilly-dally, shilly-shally and dither.
Labour may delay but time will not. They cannot escape their responsibility. ‘Not now’, will become never.
Labour's ‘change’ is no change.
Six months to set up a Royal Commission, three months to get underway. Two years to gather evidence, nine months to report. A year’s consultation and debate in the House… just in time for the manifesto, for the next election.
Whilst Labour kicks the can down the road, thousands of frail, vulnerable people will run out of road.
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