Greens call for new
course on social care
Image credit: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Creative
Commons
The
UK government this week included deaths from coronavirus taking place outside
hospitals in its national figures for the first time. These figures therefore
now include deaths that have taken place in care homes. This came as it was
announced that there were 2,000 coronavirus deaths in UK care homes in a
single week in April.
Prominent
Greens were among the critics of the government’s response to the coronavirus
crisis in care. Jenny Jones – one of the two Green peers in the House of Lords
– said that care homes had been neglected in the government’s coronavirus
strategy. Writing in Left Foot Forward, Jones
called for a “National Care Service” to tackle the crisis in the care sector.
She wrote:
We need a national
care service that recognises the vital role that carers are playing by paying
them better.
We need a massive
injection of cash into the private care home sector in order to keep it going
for the coming year. We need to send out a clear message that the hospitals are
open for everyone who needs them.
Finally, we need to
recognise exceptional carers as the heroes they are. I think that the carers
and managers who are taking turns self-isolating at care homes are amazing and such
people need all the support we can give them.
The
call for a National Care Service was also shared by Jamie Osborn – a Green
Party City Councillor in Norwich. Also writing in Left Foot Forward, he criticised privatisation
of the care service:
we have a National Health
Service, funded by taxpayers as a universal right, but social care is
privatised or, for those who have assets of less than £23,000, it is the
responsibility of local councils.
He continued:
It’s time we had a
properly-funded, universal, free-at-the-point of delivery, National Care
Service.
The criticism of the status quo in
social care, and the response to the coronavirus crisis within it wasn’t just
confined to England though. Alison Johnstone – co-convener of the Scottish
Green Party’s parliamentary group – hit out at the Scottish Government’s
failure to increase testing in care homes.
Johnstone said:
The evidence shows
clearly that the regular testing of care workers and hospital staff will help
detect cases early, reduce the spread of the virus and give those workers the
protection they deserve.
The Scottish Government’s continued
refusal to commit to test these dedicated frontline health and care workers
when there is significant additional testing capacity available is baffling and
will severely hamper our ability to get a grip on this situation.
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