Providers Strengthen Ranks For Campaign
A CARE providers organisation is set to add five new directors to its ranks as it gears up for a pre–General Election campaign.
The Independent Care Group unveiled the new directors at an event in York and declared that the time for social care reform was overdue.
ICG Chair Mike Padgham said: “With the addition of these five new directors we will strengthen the Board of the ICG, add new and valuable skills and get the ICG ready for the campaign trail ahead.
“We are rolling towards a General Election and it will be up to the ICG, as the officially recognised social care provider organisation in our region, to campaign for it to feature in the political party manifestos.”
The new directors, to be elected at the next Board meeting, are: John Russell, Director at Holt Retirement of Hutton Buscel; Lizzie Hancock, Managing Director and Owner of Fulford Nursing Home; Jill Baker, Marketing Manager with Hempsons solicitors in Harrogate; Paul McCay, CEO of Wilf Ward Trust in Pickering and Aaron Padgham, a Director with Saint Cecilia’s Care Group in Scarborough.
A sixth Board member, representing Coventry University, is expected to join the Board shortly to strengthen its educational representation. Other appointments are to be made in due course, to further strengthen and grow the Board.
Mr Padgham added: “With these directors we will widen the Board’s expertise and bring more vital knowledge of residential and nursing care, marketing, legal services, supported living, accountancy and training to the table.
“Our members and the hundreds of thousands of people they care for are looking to the ICG to provide strong leadership at this challenging time for social care.
“With a newly-revitalised Board we can do that and can step up our campaigning activity to make a difference to social care in our region and across the country.”
The new directors were announced at a masterclass event with author and social care recruitment expert Neil Eastwood in York on Thursday.
The Board is promoting the ICG’s Five Pillars of Social Care Reform document, which has just been published.
Copies have been sent to the Government and to the Labour health team to influence their thinking on social care in the lead up to the party conference season this autumn and a General Election, possibly next year.
The ICG wants to know how politicians plan to get care to the 1.6m people who currently can’t get it; tackle the 152,000 vacancies in the sector; properly recognise and reward the social care workforce with better pay and conditions and find the extra 445,000 care staff the sector will need to cope with rising demand, by 2035.
