Campaigners Lobby Labour Over Social Care
CAMPAIGNING providers today called on Labour politicians to adopt their five-point plan to save social care.
The Independent Care Group (ICG) has sent a copy of its Five Pillars for Social Care Reform to Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Shadow Social Care Minister Liz Kendall.
They have already sent the document to Health Secretary Steve Barclay and Social Care Minister Helen Whately.
The document sets out how the ICG believes the care of older and vulnerable adults can be rescued from its current crisis.
The five pillars are:
• Ring fence a percentage of GDP to be spent on providing social care to those who already receive it and the 1.6m who can’t get it
• Create a unified National Care Service, incorporating health and social care
• Set a National Minimum Wage per hour for care staff on a par with NHS
• Set up an urgent social care task force to oversee reform
• Fix ‘fair price for care’ tariffs for things like care beds and homecare visits.
ICG Chair Mike Padgham said: “We are reaching a pivotal moment for social care in this country and we need politicians to sit up and take notice of the situation that is unfolding before us.
“Following a very positive and constructive meeting I held with the shadow Labour team back in March, we have set out what we believe are the priorities any new government would need to do to sort out social care.
“We have sent our Five Pillars document and a support document to the Labour politicians in the hope of informing their policy in the coming months.
“We are coming up to political party conference season and we have a General Election possibly next year – we have to start shaping the dialogue on social care and coming up with some plans for a fresh start.
“We have set out our Five Pillars document as a talking point to get the ball rolling and to stimulate conversations with politicians who need to come up with a proper, sustainable, costed plan to reform social care.
“For the next General Election, we need to see how the main political parties are going to get care to the 1.6m people who currently can’t get it; tackle the 165,000 vacancies in the sector; properly recognise and reward our excellent workforce with better pay and conditions and find the extra 445,000 care staff we will need to cope with rising demand, by 2035.”
