Where is your plan to fix social care, Prime Minister?

Social care reform has shown itself to be one of the most important issues for the general public over the last three years. It was a topic that dominated the 2017 general election, and something Boris Johnson labelled as a priority in his first speech as Prime Minister. Whilst there has been much discussion, indecision and delay during this period, other important services have had to pick up where the social care system cannot – and none more so than the NHS.

The current social care crisis – borne out of successive Tory governments’ incessant will to hack bits off of local authority budgets – has resulted in one million people not getting the care they need. Local government is on the frontline, providing the services we all rely on. The government must understand that when they make cuts to the sector, shockwaves are felt across the nation.

Figures recently produced by the Alzheimer’s Society show that in the five years from 2012/13 to 2017/18 the number of emergency admissions in hospital for people with dementia rose by 35% to 379,000. With 40,000 people with dementia being stranded in hospital for over a month. These statistics show the shocking cost of inaction on this issue and why the Prime Minister must keep his promise to fix social care.

Last year, during Dementia Action Week, I was able to meet with Alzheimer’s Society in Portsmouth and hear from them first-hand the issues affecting people living with dementia. People with dementia often face avoidable emergencies due to falls, dehydration and infections because of scarce, inadequate and costly care. The sparsity of appropriate care home places and the lack of care support for independent living adds to the ever-growing number of people with dementia facing delayed discharging from hospital.

Labour’s call for free personal care in the last election was a radical one. With the Labour leadership election underway, I believe whoever is elected must build on this proposal and provide a policy for social care reform that supports all those who need it, including those living with dementia.

It has now been more than five months since 850,000 families with dementia across the UK, including more than 2,100 in Portsmouth, heard the Prime Minister stand on the steps of Downing Street and make a promise to fix social care.

The Prime Minister’s commitment that he would engage in cross-party talks is welcome. Given that it has been more than two years since a green paper on social care was promised, however, these talks must not be used as an excuse for delay. For too long governments have not addressed this issue.

I believe these talks should also include people who have direct experience of the failures in the care system. That’s why I would like the government to set out a clear timeline for reform and commit to involving people affected by dementia within these cross-party talks.