Tag Archives: health and social care

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 …