Kenny Cunningham, West Cheshire Socialist Party
The unfolding crisis in social care starkly illuminates the human cost of government austerity and local authority penny-pinching.
A recent report by the Homecare Association, which represents care providers, pointed out the increasing use of short calls and said: “15-minute visits are inappropriately short”. In that time two care workers are expected to wake a client, prepare a meal, ensure it is eaten, administer medication, provide any personal care and tidy the kitchen. Yet 313 people with care needs in Warrington borough council have received visits as short as three minutes!
To call this level of care ‘inadequate’ misses the main point – it is unacceptable. People with support needs are being drastically let down.
The local government and social care ombudsman, Michael King, said: “We are increasingly looking at complaints from a human rights perspective – and councils need to consider the rights of service users to have a private life when commissioning or delivering care.”
But for these rights to be achieved we will need to see an urgent labour movement response.
Underfunded, under-resourced, and under pressure, care workers bear the brunt of this mainly privatised, undervalued yet crucial part of our society.
Until they are paid fairly, the sector gets the funding it needs, and it is taken out of profiteering hands and back into public ownership under democratic workers’ control, people with support needs are going to continue to be drastically let down.
