FEATURE
A Gloriously Ordinary Life
Rob Finney, Chief Operating Officer at Tristone Healthcare, looks at what needs to be done to meet the recommendations made by the House of the Lords committee on reforms to adult social care.
The microscope has been placed firmly on adult social care in recent months, as the powers that be attempt to address systemic issues that are being felt on the ground by providers day in, day out.
Sadly, adult social care is not unique in needing some desperate TLC. Many aspects of social care have been subject to independent review aſter independent review, as the sector attempts to get to grips with longstanding issues, such as recruitment, skills, funding and demand.
Adult social care also suffers from similar complaints, which is why the House of Lords has added political weight to the discussion and become the latest body to scrutinise the sector and address the challenges and pressures facing the industry.
At the end of 2022, the House of Lords Adult Social Care Committee published a report, challenging the government to implement urgent reforms in the sector.
Entitled, ‘A Gloriously Ordinary Life’: Spotlight on Adult Social Care, the report warned that the ‘continued invisibility’ of the adult social care sector was increasingly damaging to both those who draw on care and who provide unpaid care at a time of increasing need, rising costs and a shrinking workforce.
As the committee said themselves: “Aſter hearing from a range of witnesses, including disabled adults and older people, carers, service providers, local authorities, and academics, the report sets out a new approach to adult social care which calls on the government to commit to a more positive and resilient approach to adult social care based on greater visibility for the whole sector, as well as greater choice and control for disabled adults and older people and a better deal for unpaid carers.”
The committee set out clear recommendations to ‘make adult care a national imperative’, by:
● Delivering realistic, predictable and long-term funding.
● Delivering a properly resourced plan for supporting a highly valued workforce, building skills and remedying low pay.
● Establishing a powerful Commissioner for Care and Support to strengthen the voice and identity of the sector.
● Finally and fully implementing the principles of the Care Act 2014, rooted in wellbeing, choice, and control.
● Ensuring that the voice of social care is loud and clear within Integrated Care Systems.
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Five months on, the committee has published a call for evidence, asking the public for their views on what needs to change to create ‘a fair, resilient and sustainable care system that better enables everyone to ‘live an ordinary life’ and, in so doing, to have greater choice and control over their lives’.
We recently took to social media to gain our own insight into where the answers lie and what the sector would like to see in order to meet the objectives of the report. Mirroring the committee’s first recommendation, 49% of respondents said greater funding was needed. This was followed by more collaboration and a stronger focus on skills and recruitment (29% each). The consistency in messaging between those on the ground and those attempting to drive reform in the House of Lords is clear – more money, a clearer voice, and a stronger workforce.
When you speak to leaders in the sector, the feedback is precisely the same. Many don’t deny the veracity of the report – in fact some describe it as ‘spot on’ – unfortunately, it’s one in a long list of similar publications that are seeking to do things differently.
For the sector, the issue is not what is being said and the recommendations being made, but how as a sector we react, respond, and interpret the raſt of guidance, protocols and legislation already in place.
While there is fantastic work happening every single day to achieve excellent outcomes for people, leaders insist that there is a real need for the sector to modernise its thinking. As one such leader said: “We need to move away from the mentality of ‘them and us’ and start to think about how we would design adult social care services if we were doing it for ourselves – it would be entirely different.
“Fundamentally, more focus needs to put on people’s human rights and the simple requirements of providing individuals with their own home, a family life, and the power to manage their own personal budgets and choose their own ‘gloriously ordinary life’.”
I think we can all agree that the current provision of adult social care services is not sufficient, is not delivered in the way that it should be, and is severely underfunded. When the purse strings catch up with the ideas, and they are properly funded, only then will we start to see progress.
https://tristonehealthcare.co.uk www.tomorrowscare.co.uk
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