The Social Care Problem, and the confusion at the heart of it
The problem of the social care system in the UK, where to begin? The country’s vulnerable children have been deprioritised, with child social care not being reviewed since 2016, and adult social care seems to be snowballing into a mess, despite recent reforms.
What a month the UK’s adult social care system has had. Nothing for years and then, suddenly, all at once.
We have seen the enactment of the government’s ‘no jab, no job’ scheme, a mandate for unvaccinated care workers to not be able to work. And, then, when we all thought it couldn’t get any more turbulent: an adult social care reform — the first brave attempt since the idea came to light in 2010.
Boris Johnson’s plan seemed simple: to introduce an £86,000 ‘cap’ on the amount an individual would pay for care in their lifetime.
These changes, though, have been seen to be controversial. The percentage of wealth that someone pays for their care will be much lower if they are more wealthy.
Pair this measure with the ‘no jab, no job’ policy, the respect for a care home resident has deteriorated to almost nothing, within just a few days.
Mrs Denise Singleton, 56, from Portsmouth has recently had her mother put into care, after she got diagnosed with vascular dementia. She said she is “appalled” by the government’s ‘no jab, no job’ scheme, as it may lead to her mother’s dementia deteriorating.
“My mum’s memory is better when she sees familiar faces,” Mrs Singleton said, “her health might deteriorate if some staff are sacked because they are unvaccinated.”
Mrs Singleton’s Mum does not have enough wealth to fund her care: “my mum’s care home expects me to pay £400 in contribution to her care, which would leave me scraping to live myself.”
There is a notorious — legally and messily defined — dividing line between NHS care and all other care and treatment. If you have any savings or own a home, you still have the choice to access an unlimited amount of free NHS care: the NHS does not discriminate and it is free for a lifetime. However, if you suffer from an illness which mentally, or physically, impairs you and you cannot look after yourself, you have to pay for it with your own assets. That is, if you need help to use the toilet, eat, move or dress, your savings (or indeed the savings of your nearest and dearest) could be raided. How is that fair?
The new “cap” is an unfair, cruel facade on the system, dressed up as a reform and biased towards the better-off.
This unfolds the — unaddressed — genuine problem: in recent years there has been a squeezing of local authority budgets which are used to provide care for those who cannot afford it. This already tightly squeezed budget has also been used to fund the child social care system which — it is very sad to say — seems to be crumbling at the seams.
There has been so much concentration on the social care cap, which, arguably, has impeded discussion over the wider issue of funding.
Miss Cloudia Belcher, a former child protection officer for Portsmouth City Council, explains the consequences of squeezing local authority budgets for child social care.
Mrs Belcher said: “the burnout rate for social workers, and managers, was crazy, most people would quit their job before 2 years.
“In the 14 months I was there, during the pandemic, everyone but one member of staff left.”
As expected, it is the workforce for our most vulnerable in society who are desperately suffering the catastrophic fall out from this compounding crisis.
Miss Belcher said she was “so burnt out and overloaded” that her quality of work was compromised, as well as her mental health. Both adult and child social care workers are pushed beyond what is acceptable.
“My job was so hard to switch off from” Miss Belcher said, “I couldn’t sleep at night and I was pushing everyone away.”
A recent RSA paper (Key Workers in the Pandemic, September 2021) showed care workers are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain their mental health, and expected to “feel burnout this winter” if they hadn’t already (49% have already experienced this).
Miss Lynda James, a former care worker at Shearwater care home, said: “we need billions more to pay for the resources that vulnerable people need.
“Instead, we’re financially insecure and feel devalued and forgotten. That’s why I quit my job, it was too much.”
The latest ONS figures show the number of job vacancies in the UK has risen to one of the highest levels in years. In such a competitive labour market, sectors must have incentives (for e.g. decent pay, reward, recognition, respect) to attract recruits — social care continues to come up empty. They have nothing left to give. They need change- and they need it now.
