Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Is anyone brave enough to fix social care?

Social care is in crisis. Everyone knows that – or at least likes to say so to sound well-informed. It is Westminster’s latest trendy crisis – rich with case studies of elderly people trapped in hospital for weeks, or trapped in their beds at home with one flying fifteen minute visit a day in which a carer has to choose whether to bathe that elderly person or take them to the toilet. It is now a comfort blanket topic for Jeremy Corbyn to retreat to at Prime Minister’s Questions whenever he has run out of other things to ask Theresa May about. But is anyone doing anything about this crisis, other than talking about it?

There’s a lot of talking big and very little action. Every few years, another politician launches another inquiry into social care which then languishes for years after publication, forgotten and uncared for. Theresa May has agreed to cross-party talks on social care – a phrase those working in the sector have become inured to as something that involves a lot of kicking and rather too much long grass.

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