Time to deploy volunteer army of carers – The Yorkshire Post says

Volunteer Army needed to offset social care staff crisis this winter – Mike Padgham

The Yorkshire Post published a passionate plea from Mike Padgham, chair of the Independent Care Group, to Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary on August 27 last year in which he made the case for a national ‘volunteer army’.

NHS staffing crisis now ‘dangerous’, former Health Secretary claims, as pressure grows on Boris Johnson over Omicron surge – The Yorkshire Post says

Mr Padgham, from Scarborough, urged Ministers to “set up an urgent national task force of volunteers – retired carers or nurses, for example – to step in as the staffing crisis deepens and particularly as we approach winter”.

What a shame he was not heeded. Now councils like North Yorkshire are having to take pre-emptive action that has met the full wrath of the unions while Mr Padgham says leaving care homes under-staffed is just as dangerous to patients, if not more so, than any helper who might not be fully compliant with CRB criminal checks.

However it is a clear in a county renowned for its benevolence and public spiritedness that there are many people who are only happy to help in the kitchens with washing up and other menial chores as well as helping to feed residents – or simply answering the phones to spare exhausted carers.

What is needed, in this latest phase of the Covid pandemic, is an effective way of harnessing this goodwill – and wider recognition that the staffing pressures in the NHS, and social care, are a genuine national emergency that can no longer be ignored by glib ministers who are far removed from the front line.

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