Inside Holyrood: Hopefully the new National Care Service will one day be as appreciated as the National Health Service, says MSP
Highland Greens MSP John Finnie says plans for the new service are great but whatever the plans families must come first during the change over
The fantastic news that all frontline care and support staff at social care provider Highland Home Carers (HHC) are to be paid a minimum of £10 per hour from next month is a fine testament to the opportunities of employee ownership.
HHC is Scotland’s the second largest employee owned company in Scotland, meaning all the staff there have a meaningful stake in the future of the firm and their own jobs. If the last year has shown us anything it’s that having a robust care sector, with skilled and motivated staff, is vital.
While the standard of care provided to people in Scotland is, on the whole, very high there naturally remains significant room for improvement. Sadly, not every company involved in the provision of care has had the same progressive view and concern for staff welfare as HHC. Too often the desire for private industry to make a profit has been the priority rather than the people who really need care. As a country we don’t accept that when it comes to the health service, so why should we accept it when it comes to care?
The Scottish Government recently published the results of a review into adult social care and at the heart of its recommendations are a shift in how we view care in general. That means no longer considering the expense of care services a burden, a view that dehumanises the people who need care, but rather seeing it as an investment in a healthy society.
Part of that will involve the creation of a National Care Service which, importantly, should be on “equal footing” with the NHS. That’s a laudable aim and it has my support. Such a service has the potential to transform lives if implemented correctly.
That last point is vital though. Any great upheaval in the provision of care will naturally create anxiety for service users and their families. Whatever shape the new system takes there must be clearly delineated responsibility, communicated to patients, so that public bodies are accountable, and no one falls through the cracks. There is a phrase commonly used in disability activism; “nothing about us without us” and that absolutely translates to the development of a new care service. The people who use the service must be at the heart of its design, or else we risk going backwards.
During the pandemic NHS staff at every level have been rightly praised by the public at large and the whole institution is held in a deep affection. While I doubt anyone would suggest the NHS has always been perfect it is staffed with dedicated healthcare professionals and these dark days would have been even darker without them. I hope that, in time, a new care service will receive the same warmth.