Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director at Age UK
said:
"When the Select Committee says that 'care homes were effectively
thrown to the wolves' it is hard to disagree. There is no doubt
that while this was, and continues to be, a uniquely challenging
situation, some catastrophic mistakes have been made by
decision-makers, with tragic consequences for older people, their
families and friends and care staff. Thousands of older people
and hundreds of care workers died whose lives might have been
saved had we reacted faster to the emerging threat to care homes
here, as similar problems played out in other countries a few
weeks ahead of the pandemic's trajectory here. We can't say we
didn't know.
"What matters now above all is that we learn the right lessons
from what has gone wrong to date, so we are properly prepared for
any resurgence of Covid-19 later this year. We still hear of
problems with testing in care homes and its crucial these are
resolved to give them a much better chance of combatting the
virus if it strengthens once again. It is equally important that
care homes can be confident of being able to access good primary
and community health support - which in some cases went missing
earlier during the pandemic, leaving care staff to manage life
and death situations alone. And it's not just about care homes:
home care needs more support too, as do the many older people
struggling at home, still too afraid to go out and sometimes
turning paid care staff away for fear of contracting the virus.
We have to rebuild their confidence and the best way of doing
that is to make sure services, PPE and testing are all in place
and running smoothly and efficiently.
"Never again. Never again can we let down social care, its staff
and the older and disabled people who depend on it like we have
done this year. The Committee is right when it concludes that the
failure of successive governments to reform and refinance social
care meant it was in no position to withstand Covid-19 when it
came roaring in. And frankly, despite the efforts of the many
good people working in it social care is a mess: it isn't a
proper system and no one is really in charge. Remember the
Department of Health and Social Care didn't even have a list of
all the care homes that exist and had to ask the regulator for
this most basic information.
"2020 threatens to go down in history for all the wrong reasons,
but if the Government brings forward proposals to create a new,
comprehensive system of care from the ashes of what we have now,
with the funding to match, it could be remembered as the start of
something a lot more positive, and long overdue."
