Commenting on today’s publication of the Independent Review of Adult Social Care in Scotland, Scottish Socialist Party National Co-spokesperson Colin Fox said:
“The headline recommendation from Feeley is his call for a National Care Service in Scotland. Yet nowhere in the 109-page report is there any sense the reasons behind the COVID crisis that precipitated it have been adequately addressed.
“The Review, to be handed to Health Secretary Jeanne Freeman, does little to address the deep crisis in adult social care provision and funding in this country exposed by the failures of the past twelve months.
“After reading it you could be forgiven for thinking the appalling number of deaths in Scotland’s residential care homes had not happened, that 2,000 people had not died lonely, poor deaths there, in facilities unfit to look after them.
“There is no sense of the ‘ticking time bomb’ sitting beneath residential care provision in this country nor the imminent departure of thousands of poorly paid care staff let down by management in a sector that can ill afford to lose them.
“There have been dozens of such Reviews, Commissions, Bills, White Papers and Reports published over the past 25 years that similarly ‘buried their heads in the sand’ about the profound failure of social care provision in a model that is privately provided (expensively so), poorly delivered, and fails hundreds of thousands of senior citizens every year.
“Derek Feeley proposes the establishment of a ‘national care service’ that doesn’t deserve the description. Comparisons with the National Health Service for example are paltry.
“He proposes merely to appoint a well-paid NCS Chief Executive and a handful of other well paid Chief Operating Officers. More ‘jobs for the boys’ nothing more.
“The Scottish Socialist Party is disappointed, if not surprised, by this Review. It’s failure to address the profound crisis in adult social care in Scotland will see it go the way of all those other Reports.
“We remain nonetheless committed to delivering a true ‘National Care Service’, one that is free at the point of need, publicly owned and run, and above all, fit to serve their needs of all our citizens, as befits a wealthy, industrialised nation like ours in the 21st century.”
ENDS
Contact – Mr Ken Ferguson, SSP Press Officer, 07925 613145