Responding to the Covid Inquiry report on the impact of the
pandemic on the adult social care sector, Nuffield Trust Deputy
Director of Policy Natasha Curry said:
What happened to social care at the start of the pandemic
represents the consequences of letting one of our most important
public services languish in constant crisis for years. As today's
report starkly illustrates, this had a devastating impact on the
people receiving care, their families and care workers. rightly draws attention
to the more than 43,000 deaths in care homes involving Covid-19,
and the failures that contributed to them.
While Covid has led to improvements in some areas of social care
- such as better data collection and infection prevention and
control processes - the underlying resilience of the care system
is only in marginally better shape than it was in 2020. We
carried out our own research on how the
sector could become more resilient to future shocks. But several
years later there has been little action on most of the
weaknesses we flagged, such as the unstable supply of domestic
workers. [1]
We now have the Casey Commission focused on reform and a prime
minister showing commitment, but no tangible change is likely to
be felt until at least 2030. There is a risk that the 2020s will
be a lost decade where social care has only just managed to keep
its head above water. Countries such as Japan and Denmark learnt
from Covid much more quickly and enacted reforms to build a
better system. The Hallett Inquiry must be used to add to the
gathering momentum towards reform, not just be seen as a historic
account of failures that must never be allowed to recur.
Ends.
Notes to Editors
- The Nuffield Trust research on lessons from the pandemic for
social care is available here. It says that a
resilient care system needs adequate resourcing, a stable
workforce, a stable provider sector, good information flows,
and clear governance and accountability.
