Vaccine miracle is no cure for social care crisis’ here’s why – Mike Padgham

He was speaking after the Allies had secured victory in Egypt, but his words, spoken in 1942, carry with them the stark warning that the war wasn’t over yet.

And so we are with Covid-19 and the ongoing fight to protect the most vulnerable, and have them lead the way towards a return to our freedom and normal life.

Recent weeks have brought fantastic breakthroughs, with the vaccine now being rolled out and the Government promising that loved ones can return to visiting their families in care settings.

But, as Churchill noted, we aren’t through this yet and it isn’t quite time for rejoicing, nor is it time for the inevitable blame game and finger pointing. All that can come later.

Covid-19 has had a brutal impact on care and nursing homes, on the care of vulnerable people in their own home, in extra care facilities and in the care of those with mental and physical disabilities.

The announcement of the vaccine is wonderful news for all those people, but it not going to be an overnight transformation.

Nor are care providers going to be able to test and accommodate all those who want to visit their loved ones at once.

Both things are fantastic news for social care, and wonderful for the people we care for after such a dreadful eight months.

But they have also placed the sector under the most enormous pressure at a time when they, alongside their amazing counterparts in the NHS, are still fighting the second wave of Covid-19. It hasn’t gone away yet, as the daily death statistics show

The reintroduction of visiting is vital as people have been apart from their loved ones for far too long. But no sooner had the Government made its visiting announcement than telephones began ringing with relatives wanting to visit homes.

Understandable, given that they have been apart for so long, but the reintroduction of visiting is a huge undertaking for care homes, with full training and then testing and visiting procedures to be put in place, for thousands of visits in just a matter of days.

And, though the vaccine is wonderful news, the task of getting all our vulnerable people and staff vaccinated is huge and not going to happen straight away. In many cases, we don’t even know yet how it is going to happen. It is going to be several months before we can vaccinate everyone. What I do know is we are going to need some support from central Government and some patience and understanding from the community to do so.

In the meantime, we need a real allied response to Covid-19 to make sure it does not take a hold again over Christmas. Tempting as it will be to relax all of defences over the festive period, we mustn’t do so or we will start a third wave of coronavirus in the New Year.

This latest Catch-22 is the latest in an endless stream of challenges the past year has thrown up. Staff have been left physically and mentally drained by the sheer stress of the struggle. When the virus struck, it felt from the start as though we were fighting it with one arm behind our backs. At first, all the attention and resources were aimed at NHS healthcare as the Government feared it would be overwhelmed.

That meant care providers struggled to get personal protective equipment (PPE) and proper testing from the off – a situation we are still contending with even now, in the second wave.

As staff themselves became ill or self-isolated, we found ourselves short, just at a time when we needed a full team. Restrictions on staff moving from home to home added extra strain.

Then the Government gave providers their biggest dilemma by offering contracts to take in discharged Covid-19 patients from hospital. With this came an obvious risk. But where else could the patients be cared for? The same dilemma is with us during the second wave.

Now, with the vaccine arriving, we hope we will be able to turn again to the whole future of social care. Under-funded and neglected by government after government, coronavirus exposed a social care system that was already in crisis with 1.5m people living without the care they need, £8bn cut from the sector since 2010 and 100,000 care vacancies on any one day.

Social care desperately needs its Nye Bevan moment. We need properly funded social care so that providers can offer a complete, professional service and can offer their amazing staff, who have fought side by side with their NHS counterparts during coronavirus, the same pay and professional recognition. A good start would be to offer social care staff in England a £500 bonus as they have in Wales and Scotland.

Endless politicians have all taken their turn as the little Dutch boy who plugs a dyke with his finger to stop the flood. But the tide of change in social care is rising and the need for reform is as irresistible as that heavy flow of water.

Boris Johnson again promised to tackle social care in his Tory party conference speech. Well, PM, it is time to deliver on that and endless previous promises and get your finger out. The vaccine may help us but the fight for better social care is still to be won.

I began with Winston Churchill and I’ll end with a speech he gave in 1941: “This is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

The enemy in this case being those holding up the reform of social care. This must change. Action this day!

Mike Padgham is chair of the Independent Care Group in North Yorkshire.

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