Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)16 February 2021
I welcome the publication of the independent review of adult social care. There have been calls for an independent review from the third sector and social care providers for many years. In 2019, when I held a round-table event to discuss self-directed support, concerns were raised about gender assumptions, training, development, funding, local authority guidance, the complaints process and many more issues that appear in the review.
However, Covid-19 has done most to reveal the cracks in adult social care. The SNP’s failure to protect care homes, with more than 3,000 deaths in them in the past year, has prompted the review and moved the situation on. We know the effect that decisions have had on care homes: residents have been put under pressure and staff have faced pressure on their mental health and wellbeing, and have seen the deaths of residents who were also friends and family.
The review identifies familiar themes that will resonate with members across the chamber. The report outlines a guddle of a system that reflects experiences that many constituents and groups have presented to me, in my role as an MSP. The need to fight for support and services causes stress and anxiety. Disabled people are frustrated when they discover that no personal assistant with the right skills to help them to lead an active and independent life is available in their home town.
On self-directed support, when people are told the options that exist, social workers too often do not tell them that they can employ someone themselves—they are not given all the options. When I was putting together my care package, there was no mention of that option during my several meetings with the social worker. The meetings were all about the state or other people providing my care package. That might be appropriate for many people, but if we are truly to revolutionise care for older people and people with disabilities, they must be given all the options, and the funding must follow what is best for the individual, not what a social worker thinks is best for them.
We have too many people still caught up in bedblocking because their package of care has been cancelled, is not available or has been delayed. For many relatives, the challenges of securing appropriate social care for a loved one are just too difficult and overwhelming. That can require them to take on the role of unpaid carer, which sometimes leads to financial insecurity when they cannot hold down employment alongside their caring responsibilities. As we heard from Monica Lennon and others, the responsibility often falls on women relatives and mothers, among others, to provide that care. That is why we need to look at the issue as one that affects women particularly, in our society.
We must not kick the recommended improvements into the long grass. We must start moving on them and not wait for yet more discussions, regardless of whether the improvements are about developing people’s personal capacity, looking at how we direct self-directed support in a more positive way or empowering people in their communities. We should be united on the issue, so I am pleased that we have a lot of cross-party support on it. I hope that whoever forms the next Government will get the support of the whole Parliament to take the issue forward.
16:56