Meeting of the Parliament 24 March 2026 [Draft]
For the five years of this parliamentary session, we have known about the challenges that the minister has just rehearsed, and all the while that crisis in social care has fed through to a crisis in our NHS. It is no wonder that the report that was submitted to ministers by Lynn Laughland, who is the chair of HRM Homecare Services Ltd, revealed that 40,000 weekly hours of care were being missed or not met. That led her to say:
“These are not administrative backlogs. They are the measurable consequences of a system operating beyond sustainable capacity.”
The sector has been on its knees for the better part of this parliamentary session, and this Government has been found wanting. In the dying days of this parliamentary session, what will the minister’s Government do to help social care in this country?