Labour failing on social care reform

As if it wasnt bad enough that Labour Ministers have kicked social care reform into the long grass, the Guardian reports that even the morsel of comfort the government has thrown in the direction of progress is fairly worthless.

The paper says that crucial cross-party talks aimed at building political consensus for large-scale changes to adult social care have failed to get off the ground with Liberal Democrats saying that not a single all-party meeting on the issue had taken place in the four months since the government announced ambitious plans to build a national care service to fix the UK’s growing social care crisis:

Wes Streeting said in January that older people could be left without help and the NHS overwhelmed unless a national consensus could be reached on how to fix a system widely regarded as failing.

The health secretary appointed Louise Casey to chair a commission on social care with a brief to build agreement between the main parties on how the changes could be taken forward. Streeting said past attempts at reform had stumbled because of “bad politics”.

Talks were scheduled to open on 26 February but were postponed after ministers said that not all parties could make the meeting. The Lib Dems offered to “clear our diaries” to reschedule but said a new date has not yet been proposed.

Helen Morgan, the Lib Dems’ health and social care spokesperson, said: “If it’s taking almost two months and counting to schedule a single meeting, I have serious concerns about the focus at the top of government needed to successfully undertake and implement this review.

“Ministers’ handling of these cross-party talks smells of a government that has put rescuing social care in the ‘too difficult’ pile.

“Their failure to grasp the nettle means that a review that could have been completed within a year is instead taking three, with ministers risking even longer delays because of their failure to get these talks off the ground.

“For years under the Conservatives, [social care] was shamefully neglected, with patients bearing the brunt. Now, the Labour government is taking an approach of kicking the can down the road rather than facing up to the challenges of fixing this broken system.”

Labour really need to do better.