'˜Radical change' needed to reform social care

Mike Padgham, the Scarborough-based chair of the Independent Care Group, which represents care providers in York and North Yorkshire, was speaking after the Commons Health and Social Care Committee warned that families and carers were grappling with local services that are “poorly organised” and “struggling to cope” with the rising demand for care.

As reported in Monday’s Yorkshire Post, the influential committee of MPs’ new report on integrated care said the Government’s plans to better combine health and social care in England were in danger of being undermined by public distrust and suspicion - and that ministers had failed to set out a “clear and compelling explanation” of what their reforms were intended to achieve.

The committee said the scale of the Government’s ambition for reform were not matched by either the time or resources required to deliver them.

But Mr Padgham said plans for integrated care did not go far enough. He said that despite 30 years working in social care, he still “struggled” to navigate the system and that total reform was needed.

“The Government needs to grasp the nettle and change things completely,” he told the Yorkshire Post. “We’ve played around, made it more complicated, and tinkering is costing more money and causing more delays - it is time to try something radical. We need one health and social care system. Public providers, government, and local authorities all need to be part of the same system.

“1.2m people in England are going without the care they need.”