Tag Archives: health and social care

5 million people unable to get through to their doctor as Lib Dems warn GPs must be exempt from Budget tax hike

By The Voice | Mon 4th November 2024 - 9:15 am

One in four people who contacted their GP in the past month couldn’t get through on the day they called

Lib Dems warn that the government’s National Insurance hike is a “tax on community care” that will make crisis worse

Party calls for GPs to be exempt from the tax hike alongside other health and care provider

Over 5 million people tried to contact their GP in the past month but failed to get through on the day they called, House of Commons Library research commissioned by the Liberal Democrats has revealed.

The Liberal Democrats are calling for GPs to be exempt from the employers National Insurance rise, as well as social care providers, warning that it is a “tax on community care.”

The Library’s research, based on an ONS survey published on the 10th October, showed that 22.4 million people tried to contact their GP in the previous 28 days. Of these, 5.2 million were unable to get through to their GP on the day that they called, meaning nearly one in four people who wanted to get through to their GP could not.

According to the Library’s research, a further 1.2 million people were unsuccessful in contacting their GP at all that month.

It comes amid warnings the hike to the employers’ National Insurance (NI) rate from 13.8% to 15% in the budget will push up GP surgery staff costs.

The government has not set money aside to compensate surgeries for this increase and GP surgeries are not eligible for Employment Allowance that shields the smallest employers from the rise in NI.

For example an employee earning £30,000 a year will cost the practice an additional £866 and the average GP surgery will see their annual costs increase significantly.

Posted in News and Press releases | Also tagged budget 2024 and helen morgan | 7 Comments

21 October 2024 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Mon 21st October 2024 - 11:45 pm

NHS national conversation: Govt must show ambition to fix Conservatives mess or “risks becoming a talking shop”
Social Care: Govt kicking the can down the road yet again
McArthur responds to First Minister “wrestling” with assisted dying

NHS national conversation: Govt must show ambition to fix Conservatives mess or “risks becoming a talking shop”

Responding to the government’s announcement that it will begin a ‘national conversation’ about the future of the NHS, Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said:

The government must show the ambition needed to fix the awful damage done by the Conservatives to the NHS and care, or this exercise risks becoming a talking shop.

We know that primary care services across the country are at the brink of collapse due to the Conservative Party’s disgraceful neglect, with patients paying the price.

Whether it is sky-high GP waiting lists, endless ambulance response times, or a failure to diagnose cancer in time, none of these issues can be fixed without fixing the crisis in social care.

That is why the Liberal Democrats will make sure that social care is part of the debate and push for a cross party solution to this crisis.

Social Care: Govt kicking the can down the road yet again

Responding to Care Minister Stephen Kinnock’s comments that the government’s plan to reform social care will be published “in the next 12 months”, Liberal Democrat Health and Social Care spokesperson Helen Morgan MP said:

Posted in News, Press releases and Scotland | Also tagged assisted dying bill, ed davey, helen morgan, liam mcarthur and NHS | 1 Comment

5 March 2024 – today’s press releases (part 3)

By Mark Valladares | Tue 5th March 2024 - 10:30 pm

Embargoed budget trail: The Conservatives are the great tax swindlers
Welsh Lib Dems accuse Welsh Gov of abandoning rural Wales in final budget debate
“Funding our futures” – Welsh Lib Dems demand action on school deficits
Welsh Lib Dems call for major culture change in care system

Embargoed budget trail: The Conservatives are the great tax swindlers

Responding to the Chancellor’s embargoed budget trail, Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey said:

The Conservatives are the great tax swindlers after years of hiking them on hardworking families.

Rishi Sunak has led the economy into a recession and forced families to pick up the tab. They have no shame.

The Conservatives must put the NHS at the heart of the budget. It is no wonder the economy isn’t growing when millions of people are stuck on NHS waiting lists, unable to work.

The only way out of this mess is a General Election to deliver the change this country desperately needs.

Welsh Lib Dems accuse Welsh Gov of abandoning rural Wales in final budget debate

Today in the Senedd, the Welsh Liberal Democrats have accused the Welsh Labour Government of abandoning rural Wales.

Posted in News, Press releases and Wales | Also tagged ed davey, education spending, jane dodds, rural affairs and taxation policy | 1 Comment

5 March 2024 – today’s press releases (part 2)

By Mark Valladares | Tue 5th March 2024 - 8:30 pm

More than 1,800 people stuck in hospital
Cole-Hamilton: SNP cut £30m from mental health despite missing targets yet again
Lib Dems reveal some of the biggest nationalist failures on the international stage
Lib Dem Mayoral candidate beats cancer

More than 1,800 people stuck in hospital

Responding to new Public Health Scotland figures which show 1,860 people were stuck in hospital due to their discharge being delayed, with 57,860 days being spent in hospital by people waiting to be discharged, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said:

Amid a chaotic turnover of SNP health secretaries, the Scottish Government has completely failed to tackle core problems that are leaving far too many languishing in hospital wards.

People should never have to wait weeks or months in hospital for a care home place or help to return home.

The SNP’s ill-fated centralisation of social care will do absolutely nothing to ease pressures. This billion-pound bureaucracy must be scrapped, not salved.

Posted in London, News, Press releases and Scotland | Also tagged Alex Cole-Hamilton, cancer care, foreign policy, mental health, rob blackie and willie rennie | Leave a comment

Ed Davey calls for higher pay for health and social care workers

By The Voice | Sun 5th February 2023 - 12:00 pm

Ed Davey used his first interview of the year on Laura Kuenssberg’s Sunday show to call for an increase in pay for health and social care workers to keep people working in the sector, which is currently in crisis. He is calling for at least an extra £2 per hour to be added to the minimum wage for care workers. This would be paid for by asking the gambling industry to pay more tax.

Lib Dem research found that a staggering 1 in 7 UK adults say they’ve had to stay at home to look after a relative over the last 12 months due to a lack of care workers.

The survey reveals millions have had to step in to look after a loved one due to a lack of professional carers in their area. A further 1 in 5 (22%) of UK adults say either they or someone else they know have paid for a private carer to look after a relative.

The party says that the proposals would tackle soaring staff vacancies in the care sector. There are currently a staggering 165,000 vacancies in social care, up 55,000 since last year, with 1 in 9 frontline care jobs vacant. These chronic staff shortages are leading to patients being left stuck in hospital waiting for social care, contributing to record-breaking waits in A&E and dangerous ambulance handover delays.

The crisis has been worsened by many care home workers leaving for better paid jobs in other sectors. New analysis from the House of Commons Library shows that the typical weekly salary of care and home workers is currently £447, compared to £468 for those working in hospitality, £477 for supermarket workers and £485 for those working in retail.

Ed said:

Thousands of people are stranded in hospital beds because there simply aren’t enough care workers to look after them at home or in a care home.

The first step to fixing this mess is to pay those working in social care more, to prevent the exodus of workers to supermarkets and other better paid jobs.

This is a skilled and crucial job and it should be paid more.

Posted in News | Also tagged carers, ed davey and minimum wage | 4 Comments

A longer read for the lockdown: Reform of health and social care without further top-down re-organisation

By Chris Perry | Thu 28th May 2020 - 11:15 am

Embed from Getty Images
In the daily update on Friday 15th May, Matt Hancock said that the current crisis had demonstrated how closely health and social care need to work together and had acted as a catalyst to reform, referring to “integration”. Care homes are not, and were never intended to be, hospitals. The residents are just as entitled to hospital care, if that is what is needed, as are the rest of us. That so many have been left to die in Care Homes, rather than being admitted to hospital, and thereby denied the benefit of oxygen, ventilators and intensive care which might have saved their lives, is the real concern. The discharge of older people from hospital to care homes, without testing, in order to free up beds for coronavirus patients, may also have spread the virus.

However, that Baroness Ros Altmann also referred to “integration” on “Good Morning Britain”, and Matt Hancock reiterated it on the 21st May, would suggest the matter is under consideration.

Countless enquiries into “child abuse” and “adult abuse and neglect” have criticised agencies for not working together. And successive Governments have tried to get Health and Social Services, in particular, to work more closely together from “joint funding” in the 1970s to the “pooling of budgets”. But no Government has grasped the nettle of the lack of common geographical boundaries, different funding streams and different lines of accountability which have been the real impediments. This does not mean a merger of health and social services, as that would further marginalise Social Work and a different combination of agencies are required depending upon the problem and desired outcome. For example: Child Protection requires children’s services, health, education, the police and foster care to work together. Older People require Adult Services, Health, Housing, Leisure Services and Income Support to work together. – But not all of them all the time. It is quite a complex multi-dimensional organisational issue across countless scenarios.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged healthcare | 14 Comments

5 March 2019 – yesterday’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Wed 6th March 2019 - 9:39 am

We’re running a bit late today, mainly because a number of these releases were embargoed until after midnight…

Tory cuts are forcing schools to beg and borrow from communities – Moran
Lib Dems: Tories failing to fund adult social care
Tory cuts driving down quality of care homes
Govt must act to prevent another Windrush
Make school uniforms gender neutral – Lib Dems
Davey: End ‘right to rent’ checks and Hostile Environment
Swinson: PM’s guarantees to protect workers’ rights not worth the paper they’re written on

Tory cuts are forcing schools to beg and borrow from communities – Moran

Responding to reports that parents are being asked …

Posted in News | Also tagged care homes, ed davey, education, eu migration, home office, hostile environment, Jo Swinson, judith jolly, layla moran, school uniforms and workers' rights | 2 Comments

6 February 2019 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Wed 6th February 2019 - 11:55 pm

Thousands dying waiting for social care as Govt ignores crisis
Lib Dems: 50 days until Brexit cliff-edge
Greg Clark’s warning exposes recklessness of Tory Govt
Lib Dems: Govt must investigate civil service support for Tory meetings
Lib Dems threaten veto to force Govt u-turn on knife crime

Thousands dying waiting for social care as Govt ignores crisis

Responding to the research by Age UK showing that more than 50,000 older people have now died waiting in vain for care during the 700 days since the Government first said it would publish a Social Care Green Paper, Former Liberal Democrat Health Minister Norman Lamb said:

These figures

…

Posted in News | Also tagged brexit, brian paddick, civil service, knife crime, norman lamb, peoples vote, tom brake and vince cable | 3 Comments

Demand Better: Liberal Democrat Priorities for a Better Britain

By Duncan Brack | Thu 30th August 2018 - 12:38 pm

For as long as I’ve been active in politics people have complained they don’t know what we stand for. We may have a reasonable profile for our position on Brexit, but the fact that we’re only the fourth party in terms of MPs makes it even more difficult than usual to gain media attention.

On top of that, the party has more than doubled in size over the last two and a half years, so we have a large number of new or newish members who aren’t as familiar as many of us with the details of party policy or our key priorities for action.

So over the last six months the Federal Policy Committee has worked to produce the paper Demand Better: Liberal Democrat Priorities for a Better Britain, which is available here and will be debated at our autumn conference at Brighton.

We’ve written the paper in close cooperation with the party’s campaigns and communications committees and staff, and we’re using the party’s new slogan as the paper’s title. Demand Better summarises the Liberal Democrat approach to politics in 2018 and highlights our key policy priorities. Should a general election take place in the next year or so, it will provide the core of the Liberal Democrat election manifesto.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged education, inequality, NHS, party policy, social mobility and taxation | 26 Comments

Economic Implications of Autumn Budget

By The Voice | Thu 23rd November 2017 - 8:30 am

Liberal Democrat Brexit Spokesperson Tom Brake commented:

“Instead of a bright future for Britain, Conservative plans will see a £65bn hit to tax receipts, slashed wages and higher borrowing.

The Government found £3bn to spend on Brexit, but nothing for our police or social care.

The Chancellor has completely failed to show the ambition needed to tackle the housing crisis, build the infrastructure the country needs or fix Universal Credit.”

And here is the breakdown of the economic costs:

1. £65bn hit to tax receipts: Tax receipts have been downgraded by £65.4 billion over the five-year period compare to …