Now act over social care and don’t leave it to chance – The Yorkshire Post says

The impact of Covid-19 on care homes is only now beocming clear.The impact of Covid-19 on care homes is only now beocming clear.
The impact of Covid-19 on care homes is only now beocming clear.
IF the decisions about lifting the lockdown were not already daunting enough, they’re even more invidious when set in the context of the social care crisis.

Without the country generating revenue for the Exchequer, there will be even less money to spend on a sector already ignored for too long.

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Now a national outcry over shortages of PPE equipment has culminated with confirmation that care homes have witnessed 5,890 deaths related to Covid-19, and that this figure has virtually doubled in the past week.

Perhaps now, with almost four times as many people dying in care homes as usual at this time of year, politicians will realise that the NHS is, in fact, a national care service where provision of services in local communities matters as much as funding for those major hospitals that have responded so heroically.

Cabiet minister Matt Hancock is supposed to be responsible for both health - and social care.Cabiet minister Matt Hancock is supposed to be responsible for both health - and social care.
Cabiet minister Matt Hancock is supposed to be responsible for both health - and social care.

Yet it will also require difficult decisions to be taken about funding – should taxes be increased, and how, to pay for health and care costs at a time when the country will be attempting to bounce back from its sharpest slump in post-war history?

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And then there is society’s duty towards the army of unpaid carers who, again, are working selflessly, and with inadequate recognition, to mask the cuts to local government spending which had left the social care sector on the brink of a financial meltdown before Covid-19 was detected.

As such, the question is one that this newspaper has already posted repeatedly and now does so again at a time of national crisis: just what will it take for health and social care to be fully integrated?

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

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Almost certainly you are here because you value the quality and the integrity of the journalism produced by The Yorkshire Post’s journalists - almost all of which live alongside you in Yorkshire, spending the wages they earn with Yorkshire businesses - who last year took this title to the industry watchdog’s Most Trusted Newspaper in Britain accolade.

And that is why I must make an urgent request of you: as advertising revenue declines, your support becomes evermore crucial to the maintenance of the journalistic standards expected of The Yorkshire Post. If you can, safely, please buy a paper or take up a subscription. We want to continue to make you proud of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper but we are going to need your help.

Postal subscription copies can be ordered by calling 0330 4030066 or by emailing [email protected]. Vouchers, to be exchanged at retail sales outlets - our newsagents need you, too - can be subscribed to by contacting subscriptions on 0330 1235950 or by visiting www.localsubsplus.co.uk where you should select The Yorkshire Post from the list of titles available.

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If you want to help right now, download our tablet app from the App / Play Stores. Every contribution you make helps to provide this county with the best regional journalism in the country.

Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson

Editor

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