Jeremy Hunt’s conference message to the social care sector
It was not Jeremy Hunt at his most assured when he delivered his speech to the Conservative Party conference today. He did not seem to fire up the audience, but for all that, he had some messages that will please the social care sector and charities working with the elderly.
Mr Hunt focused on the now notorious failures at Mid-Staffs, the bullying of a man with Parkinson’s at East Surrey, and the
kicking of disabled residents at Winterbourne, as well as the slapping of a woman with dementia at Ash Court care home.
He announced that he has asked officials at the Department of Health and the Care Quality Commission how managers can be held accountable for the care they provide both in the NHS and social care sectors.
And he said that he wanted to see a big change in the way people with dementia are looked after. The aim, he said, was to make
research and treatment into dementia among the best in Europe by the next election. A tall order without a substantial increase in investment.
And talking about investment, no word on Dilnot except to say that they want to go ahead and implement the cap on what people will pay for their care “as soon as we are able”.
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And the money is coming from where?
Another vague promise from a tory with a questionable track record.
Victoria,
Hunt was “economical with the truth.”
There will be no additional funding and there will be continued undermining of the NHS until Hunt’s privatising chums can profiteer on the backs of illness and care.
That is his whole purpose. All the rest is smoke and mirrors.
And lies.
Dilnot will not fix the crisis in the social care sector. It may, and I stress may, prevent some middle income people having to sell their houses to pay for care. However, it will not put more money into the system to pay domiciliary agencies and care homes a fair price for the care they provide to the most vulnerable people in society. We are currently in a crisis of funding for most Local Authorities and it is the providers and the vulnerable that are having their fees or minutes of care cut.
“…no word on Dilnot except to say that they want to go ahead and implement the cap on what people will pay for their care “as soon as we are able”.
I’ve worked hard all my life, spent my savings to survive 15 months without work during the Recession, survived open heart surgery earlier this year, working my socks off to pay the mortgage and faced with finding the cash to pay for care as my wife succumbs to dementia in middle life.
All I can see ahead for us is more hard work before becoming destitute and poverty stricken at the point we’re forced to sell our home to pay for care. Not one political party in England is prepared to supply care free of charge to all – something easily affordable by reducing our contributions to the EU to fund it. The sons of privilege leading all three major political parties neither know nor care about such things – if they did, they’d have solved it by now.