I joined the LGA Labour Group this morning as part of the LGA Annual Conference. We had such an interesting discussion about the future of social care – it’s clear that we need locally led services that allow older and disabled people to live the life they choose. It was […]
Today I spoke in a debate on ‘the impact of Covid-19 on retirement communities’. This is an issue which has received precious little attention during the pandemic. I believe retirement communities must play an big part in plans for social care reform. Retirement communities – or housing with […]
On Wednesday, I asked an Urgent Question to the Care Minister about the Government’s plans for social care reform. It has now been almost two years since the Prime Minister promised to ‘fix the crisis in social care.’ Yet, at the start of the week we heard that […]
Matt Hancock’s claims that there was no list of care homes at the start of the pandemic is at best disingenuous. Family members will be incredibly frustrated to hear yet another excuse from the Secretary of State, and instead of trying to defend his record, he needs to take responsibility […]
After a decade of Tory cuts, the shocking fact is that our care workers can’t deliver services to all those who need it. This provides neither the dignity nor security that Boris Johnson promised for older and disabled people. Almost two years after he promised to fix this crisis, too […]
Since Boris Johnson first promised he had a plan to ‘fix the crisis in social care once and for all’ more than 23 months ago, 2 million people have had their requests for care turned down, care workers and families have been stretched to breaking point, and thousands of people […]
This dithering and delay from the Prime Minister on important talks on social care reform is entirely unsurprising. We have been waiting almost two years to see the ‘clear plan’ for social care that he claimed to have prepared, and all we’ve heard about it is nine words in the […]
Matt Hancock was at best disingenuous in his evidence to the select committee today. He selectively used briefings, evidence and clinical advice to defend his record instead of admitting his abject failure to protect care homes in the pandemic. Even Matt Hancock knows he now categorically failed to put a […]
Last week, Matt Hancock claimed it ‘wasn’t possible’ to test all care home residents for Covid-19 before they were discharged from hospital. However, there were over 530,000 tests carried out in the UK by 20 April 2020. To compare, there were 25,000 people discharged from hospitals to care homes. By […]
Public Health England’s report, written in October, claims that only 1.6% of outbreaks in care homes had come from inpatients who had been discharged from hospital. The analysis in this report is based on people who were tested in hospital – when the precise problem was 25,000 elderly patients were […]
Guidance from the Department of Health and Social Care at the start of the pandemic did not even mention the need to test care home residents before discharging them from hospital. This didn’t change until almost a month after the country went into national lockdown. This is despite clear evidence […]
The Daily Mail have launched a campaign highlighting the problem of private equity firms buying up care homes. When Southern Cross collapsed in 2011 there were thousands of residents living in their care homes facing distress and anxiety. They were left in the dark about whether they would be able to […]
