27 April 2020
The rising death toll from the Covid 19 virus and the controversy over the recording of the deaths in care homes has brought to the fore issues with the care sector in the UK.
The care sector is mainly private sector with councils only providing specialist services such as respite or intermediate care as a transition from NHS hospitals. The sector ranges from care homes and nursing homes to the large number of mobile carers providing care in people's homes both for elderly and disabled people.
The sector is characterised by low pay, poor training, high turnover of staff and often poor management. The sector is short of 120,000 people plus is heavily reliant on overseas migrants, most of whom would fail to get into this country under the minimum earnings threshold in the new immigration system due to come in on 1 January 2021.
The Covid 19 virus has put the sector under great pressure. They and the councils who commission their services do not hold big stocks of PPE and appear to have been a low priority for supplies. There are many dedicated staff in this sector, but once the pandemic is over there needs to be a long hard look at the whole sector in terms of funding, pay and conditions, who delivers the services and to make sure it is no longer forgotten about.
See also the Green Party press release 14 April 2020 in News on the national Green Party website: https://www.greenparty.org.uk calling for urgent government action to support care homes and give a daily update on deaths among residents.
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