The National Care Service is a debacle of the SNP's own making, but, tragically, it's ordinary families who pay the price
The SNP has finally admitted what everyone else has been telling them for months – that its flagship National Care Service Bill was not worthy of the name.
On Thursday, the Minister for Social Care Maree Todd wrote to the Parliament’s Health Committee confirming that the Scottish Government had postponed plans for the amendment stage of the bill on 26 November and announcing a “revised timetable” sometime in the new year.
That’s parliamentary speak for kicking something into the long grass.
That the SNP is finally listening is a relief, but for those of us who spent countless hours pleading with them to change course, it’s also extremely frustrating.
Anyone who has ever experienced buyer’s regret knows the lure of the deal that sounds too good to be true. Just like those deals, the devil is in the detail.
This Bill would not have delivered a single extra carer, but instead formed the blueprint of a new quango.
Rather than follow the Feeley Review that set out what a National Care Service could be, this was style rather than substance.
And it represented an arrogant SNP power grab, that ultimately ignored the views of local authorities, trade unions, care providers, care workers and those cared for – the very people dealing day in, day out with the complex reality of social care.
Dame Jackie Baillie is Scottish Labour deputy leader
Across Scotland, three in every ten pounds spent by local authorities goes on social work services – or around £4.3billion.
They and independent and voluntary sector care providers also understand the local challenges.
The schedule of a care worker visiting Edinburgh suburbs looks very different from that of a care worker driving along country roads in Thurso.
Recovering from a stroke on the top floor of a Glasgow tenement is different from doing so on a croft in Skye.
Each local provider understands how social care intersects with local challenges of geography, housing, deprivation and more.
Yet in September CoSLA walked away from the Bill, with council leaders warning that the SNP was not listening to those delivering these vital frontline services.
Even the Scottish Greens warned that the plans were a “power grab on local authorities” that would “take away local accountability of social care and leave that in the hands of Scottish ministers”.
There’s no point building a ship that won’t float, but that will be little comfort to the families who are experiencing the social care system in crisis right now.
The families juggling looking after kids and elderly parents at the same time.
The husband or wife who is now trying to care for a partner with dementia.
The pensioner who had a fall but desperately wants to stay in their own home.
This SNP government has already wasted £30million on the botched National Care Service Bill – enough to fund a million hours of care at home.
Instead, more than 9,000 Scots are waiting on an assessment or care package and some are even experiencing care being withdrawn.
For these Scots, it’s desperately disappointing that after three years and three Health Secretaries, we are back where we started.
But even those lucky enough not to be experiencing the social care crisis should care about this Bill.
With an aging population, the challenge of how we ensure people live their full lives with dignity and comfort is not going away any time soon.
Instead, we face a grim lottery where a diagnosis of dementia or an unexpected stroke can wipe out the family finances.
And those families who can choose to sell or remortgage property to pay for care still have more options than those who will grow old renting.
The SNP’s failure to tackle social care after 17 years in power is also creating a logjam in other services.
The thousands of Scots waiting more than 12 hours to be treated at A&E every week are experiencing the knock-on effect of delayed discharge.
This has cost Scotland more than £1.3billion since the then-Health Secretary Shona Robison promised to eradicate the practice in 2015.
Many of those lying in hospital beds want nothing more than to return home but cannot do so because there is no care package in place.
The SNP’s failure to deliver is having profound consequences. People stuck in hospital; care homes closing due to a lack of funding; and care packages being cut to the bone.
But we can and must do things differently.
The UK Labour Government delivered a record settlement for Scotland in its recent Budget, including an additional £1.5billion for the Scottish Government to spend this financial year and an additional £3.4billion next year.
That includes £789 million of extra money for our NHS this year and £1.72 billion for next year. The age of austerity which put so much pressure on public services has ended.
And while it’s up to this SNP government how to spend Scotland’s dividend, Scottish Labour will always push for more investment in the NHS and social care.
There are other things the SNP could do now.
What’s stopping the SNP from introducing Anne’s Law, a campaign by families separated from their loved ones in care homes during the Covid pandemic?
The law would strengthen the rights of people living in adult and older people’s care homes to see and spend time with the people who are important to them, recognising that meaningful contact is a fundamental right, even during a pandemic.
This SNP Government could also use its existing powers to improve respite for carers; or the way that social care is procured; or to deliver fair pay.
None of these improvements need to be held up because of a flawed bill.
The fate of the National Care Service Bill could be a metaphor for these last 17 years of SNP rule.
For too long, the SNP has indulged in gesture politics and slogans rather than rolling up their sleeves and getting stuck into the task of governing.
They talk about devolution, but when it comes to trusting local people to know what’s best for their communities, they grab power to the centre.
They heap praise on care workers, but consistently refuse to pay them what they are worth. At the end of the day, the National Care Service Bill is a debacle of the SNP’s making.
But it’s ordinary families and taxpayers that will pay the price.
