Hansard

I am grateful for the opportunity to open, on behalf of Scottish Labour, this debate on recognising the importance of family care givers.

I know that members across the chamber care deeply about the issues raised in the motion, and have been supporting their own constituents who have been affected. We need to find a strategy that keeps care givers connected with their loved ones, whether they are in a neonatal ward, supported living accommodation, a hospice or a care home. I hope that, alongside the work that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport is leading, the debate will take us closer to achieving that.

This is a week of milestones, but unfortunately not all of them are happy ones. Tomorrow we will mark the international day of older persons, which will be an opportunity to celebrate our older citizens. However, it will also be a day on which to reflect how we might better respect their rights, needs and aspirations. This week also marks the passing of 200 days since most care homes went into lockdown. Thousands of people live in Scotland’s care homes, and they have been among the groups who have been hit hardest by Covid-19. Yesterday we reached the grim milestone of Covid-19 having caused a million deaths worldwide, so we know that we are still living through a global pandemic, with all the challenges that it brings.

At the start of the pandemic, in March and April, none of us—least of all care home residents, the staff who look after them, or their families—could have imagined what was to follow in the months ahead, or that, six months on, so many of them would still be living under such harmful restrictions.

This year has been a sad and difficult one, and our sympathies remain with all those who have lost loved ones due to Covid-19. Almost 2,000 deaths in Scotland’s care homes have been confirmed as having been caused by the virus. Worryingly, excess deaths are also increasing, including those from dementia, in comparison with those in previous years. The impact of isolation is awful and cannot be understated.

The First Minister has said on many occasions that mistakes would be made, and we cannot turn the clock back to January or February and change what has happened. However, we can ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated in the future. We must have a strategy to ensure that care givers and their loved ones can be together. We must avoid a winter of hell for families whose loved ones have so far survived the impacts of the pandemic but who are nevertheless grieving in their own ways as we near the mark of six months having passed since restrictions on them having contact were put in place.

Last week, I asked the First Minister about evaluation of the shielding strategy, and how such learning might inform our future approach to care homes and care givers. In response she said that although some scientists hold the view that vulnerable groups in our society should be sealed off and everyone else should be allowed to get on with their lives normally, she did not agree with that, either practically or ethically speaking.

The First Minister said:

“We cannot segregate our lives in that way. We live interdependently; younger people live with older people. I also do not think that it is ethically right to expect one group of the population to bear all the burden of dealing with the pandemic.”—[Official Report, 22 September 2020; c 30.]

I absolutely agree with the First Minister, but the fact is that, right now, thousands of people are in effect sealed off from their family care givers due to the current guidelines.

I pay tribute to Cathie Russell and other members of the care home relatives Scotland group because they have been instrumental in making me and people like me better understand the role of family care givers. They are not just visitors—I think that that phrase and the Twitter hashtag has left a strong impression on all of us.

I am grateful to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport for her recent meetings with Cathie Russell and some members of that group and I know that she is meeting them again this week, with a view to making real progress. I was heartened to hear the cabinet secretary, in her evidence to the COVID-19 Committee this morning, acknowledge the harmful unintended consequences of restrictions on family care givers. She talked about her aspiration to increase not just the frequency of contact but the duration of that contact and she talked about the importance of touch. That will have given a lot of people some hope; I feel strongly that people should not have to come to the Parliament and hold a rally to get a response from their MSPs. Apart from the rally, we have had petitions, and I pay tribute to Natasha Hamilton and Pauline Rodger for their respective petitions on this important issue. Pauline’s petition has been running since May and it is really sad that, as we enter the autumn, there are still many issues to resolve.

One woman emailed me yesterday to tell me about her mum, who lives in a care home and is frail and elderly. Her mum does not have dementia but, even though she is fully aware of what is going on, she does not fully understand why she is being deprived of family contact and, importantly, trips outside the care home. I feel that I must give a suicide trigger warning here because her mum’s mental health deteriorated badly and, in June, she tried to take her own life—she is 92.

These individual stories are absolutely heartbreaking. Of course we need to do everything possible to stop the virus getting into care homes, but there is a hidden catastrophe in relation to mental health and we must do something about that too, so we must make access to family care givers a priority.

I want to stress that not everyone who relies on family care givers is elderly. Gary’s adult sister, who has learning disabilities, and his elderly mother live in separate care homes in South Lanarkshire and they have not seen each other for the past six months. Gary said that their care homes are just 8 miles apart, but they may as well be 8,000 miles apart.

There are other stories, such as that of Sylvia Watson, whose mother Mary just recently turned 104 years old, but can see only one of her daughters right now, due to the one visitor per household rule. Why can we not change that rule so that Sylvia and her sister can both be recognised as designated care givers? There are thousands of stories like that, so we must do better.

What is the solution? The current approach in the guidelines is leading to hundreds of different scenarios—possibly more than a thousand—with some families not knowing from one day to the next what they are able to do or when they are able to provide care. As we head into the winter, we know that the opportunity for outdoor contact will not be reliable, so a care giver strategy needs to be put in place rapidly, to restore contact between families and their loved ones.

We know that lots of testing capacity is unused every single day, so why can we not be more innovative and use that testing capacity for the benefit of family care givers? I know that colleagues such as Alison Johnstone, who is in the chamber, have been consistent in calling for regular and routine access to testing. That is really important and it is addressed in the motion. No one is suggesting that testing negates the need for other safety measures, including personal protective equipment, but it would be a step in the right direction.

I have a constituent who is a carer for his wife. Due to a serious brain injury, she is in a care home, despite being only in her 50s. Because she lost so much weight during lockdown, my constituent was granted access to come in every day at lunch time and dinner time to help to feed her. He was given regular access to testing, and he wore PPE. Thankfully, her weight stabilised. However, when the Lanarkshire lockdown was brought in, his contact was stopped immediately. He has nothing but praise for the care home staff but, as my constituent says, why is it more dangerous for him to be a care giver than it is for the staff to be there? We have to recognise that there should be equal status between family care givers and those who are employed to provide care, and I hope that the motion achieves that. None of us really feels that we have the balance right at the moment.

In a global pandemic, we can learn a lot from other countries and exchange information with them. For me, the approach in Ontario stands out. A bill has been lodged by Lisa Gretzky, who is a member of the legislative assembly, to address the issues that we are talking about. The bill’s aim is to recognise the important role and status of family care givers.

In the UK, including in Scotland, there have been really good examples of care home staff moving into care homes. In one care home in England—I think that it is in Oxford—when new residents move in, the family care giver is allowed to move in for the two-week isolation period. We have seen other examples that look quite quirky, such as people hugging through plastic sheets and jackets. People are trying to do a lot.

Of course, recognising family care givers does not take away from the professionalism and unique skills of people who provide care. The vast majority of those who have spoken to me do not have a bad word to say about the amazing staff who look after their loved ones. We know that, on an individual level, there are people of great dedication and skill who do an incredible job.

I welcome the clarification in the Scottish Government’s amendment that it will set out its winter plans really soon. That is important. I do not disagree with the content of the Conservative amendment, which was lodged by Donald Cameron. I fully agree that there is a need for a public inquiry. Many of us feel uncomfortable about the fact that we do not know when the inquiry will be, and we do not want it to be kicked into the long grass. A public inquiry has to be about much wider issues than simply what is happening in care homes.

I am not sure whether this is deliberate, but Donald Cameron’s amendment would take out the important reference in the motion to testing and it would kick out the reference to the principles in the Ontario bill. I am not trying to bind the Government’s hands on that, but we should all sign up to those principles, which go beyond people living in care homes and are about ensuring that people of all ages and in all circumstances have that important connection with family care givers.

Our care sector has been and continues to be terribly affected by the Covid-19 lockdown. Tomorrow, as we begin a new month and mark the international day of older persons, it is absolutely vital that we agree a way forward that avoids another 200 days of isolation for our care home population. I welcome the new funding that was announced yesterday for health and social care services. We need urgent investment in PPE and testing, and a clear winter plan that will get us through the difficult months to come. We need an end to the unintended consequences of lockdown, which has kept families apart for half a year, and we need to move forward with a strategy that recognises that family care givers are more than just visitors, and that they deserve equal rights.

For the past decade, it has been Scottish Labour policy to have a national care service. That is rooted in a deeply held belief that we should put people before profit. As we move forward into the 2020s, we want a national care system that puts people at the centre and gives them choice and freedom to live with dignity. We see the review as progress, but we need swift action, and we need change to happen now, starting with important family contact.

I am sorry, Presiding Officer, I thought that I had 13 minutes, but I have got that wrong, so I will finish now.

As we look round the world to our neighbours, we must learn every lesson possible. I want us all to act now to reunite families across the country.

I move,

That the Parliament observes that 1 October is International Day of Older Persons; notes that more than 200 days have passed since care homes began locking down in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; further notes with great sadness the scale of the pandemic in Scotland’s care homes and the tragic loss of life that has occurred; believes quality social care to be essential to the health and wellbeing of people across Scotland and concludes that it is time for a National Care Service, which will deliver pay for social care workers that reflects their value and professionalism; is concerned that limited or no contact with family caregivers is having a negative impact not only on the health and wellbeing of care home residents, including those with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, but also on children, young people and other adults affected by restrictions on their caregivers; agrees that receiving care and support from one or more designated caregivers is important for the health and wellbeing of individuals, and that testing should be available to everyone involved in providing care; commends Bill 203: More Than A Visitor Act (Caregiving in Congregate Care Settings), 2020, which is currently progressing through the Legislative Assembly of Ontario; calls on Ministers to adopt a similar approach, and further calls on the Scottish Government to set out its plans for how social care services will be properly protected during winter.