England’s ‘fragile’ care sector needs immediate reform, says regulator
We’ve known for a long time that social care is a badly dysfunctional area of policy, one which impacts disproportionately in rural areas with a higher proportion of rural dwellers. This article charts the corrosive impact on coronavirus on it, telling us:
The government must immediately deliver a new deal for social care with major investment and better terms for workers, the Care Quality Commission has said, as it warned that the sector is “fragile” heading into a second wave of coronavirus infections.
In a challenge to ministers, the regulator’s chief executive, Ian Trenholm, said overdue reform of the care sector “needs to happen now – not at some point in the future”.
Boris Johnson said in his first speech as prime minister, in July 2019: “We will fix the crisis in social care once and for all.” But no reform has yet been proposed, and more than 15,000 people have died from Covid-19 in England’s care homes.
Trenholm said Covid risked turning inequalities in England’s health services from “faultlines into chasms” as the CQC published its annual State of Care report on hospitals, GPs and care services.
The report reveals serious problems with mental health, maternity services and emergency care before the pandemic, and says these areas must not be allowed to fall further behind.
In routine inspections carried out before March, 41% of maternity services were found to require improvement for safety – for example, because a baby’s heart rate was being monitored in labour by staff who lacked training.
More than half of urgent and emergency care services were also rated as requiring improvement or inadequate. Thirteen per cent of wards for people with learning disabilities and/or autism were rated inadequate, a sharp increase from 4% the previous year.