LONDON (Parliament Politics Magazine) – The shadow secretary has announced that Labour will undertake a review of how to implement a national care service in England with an ambition similar to that of the 1945 government that established the NHS.Â
Wes Streeting claimed in an interview with the Guardian that he had requested the Fabian Society to examine the structuring and funding in order to implement it over the course of multiple parliaments.Â
Stronger national standards, better salary, training and full rights of the caregivers, would be the top priorities. A national service that was on the par with the vision Aneurin Bevan for the NHS would be the “long-term vision”.Â
He would be delighted to see care services being given on the same exact terms as those of the NHS, owned and funded publicly, free when used. They had, however, got to be honest about how challenging this was going to be. So, their point of beginning was to ensure they delivered national standards for care users, better salaries and improved work conditions for the staff working in social care, said Streeting.Â
He believed the major thing about a national care service was that it was a journey. It wasn’t an event. They wouldn’t be able to deliver that over the course of a night neither in a single parliament, he added.Â
It was about how they laid the foundation for it in the first term of Labour’s administration and then building on it in the following terms, he said.Â
One in seven care facilities controlled by private equity firms, he voiced worry, do not satisfy standards and need changes. If care homes owned by private equity could be transferred to public ownership will be examined.
Private providers must provide better quality care and with a public service attitude if they wished to continue playing a role in providing social care, he said.
In regards to who should be in charge of the national care service which is publicly owned, whether it be the NHS, local councils, or another organisation, Streeting claimed he was “genuinely open-minded” about it.
A national care service was one of the promises made by Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, in the 2019 manifesto, but his successor, Keir Starmer, has announced he is starting over and rewriting the manifesto from scratch.
For Labour, a national care system was “unfinished business,” according to Streeting. Labour released a white paper on the concept as one of its final acts in power.
As Keir Starmer stated that week, the Labour party was rewriting its platform and focusing on the future without being constrained by the past. They would endeavour to establish a national care system, he declared.
It was where Labour stood, and as shadow health secretary, that was his pledge. And he wanted to make the point that if they didn’t address the social care crisis, it would be more difficult to clear the backlog in the NHS.
The Fabian Society will examine the market for care homes and how the next Labour administration would ensure high levels of care for everyone as well as professional standards for caregivers across the industry in its review of social care.
Streeting stated that there should be a substantial increase in wages for caregivers. If you looked at how things had changed under the Conservatives, care workers used to be paid 30p per hour over retail workers, but now they got paid 20p less than retail, and now they were losing workers to companies like Amazon, who were not famous for their salaries, terms, and conditions, he said.
The Scottish government unveiled ideas for a national care system last month that would revamp adult care with a focus on care provided at home. In a more centralised approach, it would make care firm executives directly answerable to Scottish ministers in a system that was more centralised.
The bill has been criticised by Unite as being “incomprehensible, incoherent, and dreadful,” while Scottish Labour has said that it is not a true national care service but rather a “power grab” that seeks to strip local councils of their jurisdiction.
