My hon. Friend makes an extremely powerful point. I am pleased that the Bill strengthens support for carers. I draw the House’s attention to the Bill introduced by the other Member for Salford, my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), which seeks to make sure that carers have the right to stay in work and the support to be able to do that. We must consider the cost to our economy of people having to give up work in order to care. We have talked a lot today about perverse incentives and false economies, and that has absolutely been a false economy for a long time.
I wish to say a word about diversity of provision and commissioning new models of care that can help with prevention. In my city we have been working on that for a long time, and I look forward to showing the Minister
some of our examples when he visits. Social adVentures is a social enterprise that helps people with mental health problems, and one of its projects is “garden needs”. It has taken control of a garden centre, and people with dementia and people with mental health problems are now attending. The way it is keeping people active in the community and able to do many more things than they would if they were isolated and at home is amazing. Unlimited Potential is another fabulous social enterprise, which stands on its own two feet, is not grant-dependent and is able to invest more money back into the community. Last week, I had the pleasure of launching a website called Really Useful Stuff, which is just what it says on the tin—it is a website where people can get aids, adaptations and kinds of social care that are modern, innovative and creative. Those are just a few examples of what is already happening in the community.
I say to the Minister that at a time when money is tight, and will be, no matter which Government are in power, the imperative to innovate and be more creative with the funds we have has never been greater. Therefore, investing, in particular, in the social enterprise sector, which often has these great ideas, and in enabling those ideas to get to scale so that provision can be made across the country, is really important. Another company in my constituency, 2ergo, has recently developed an app for the iPhone where people can see what provision is available in Salford for care, respite care and activity, and how to book it. They can book it over their iPhone—families can do that; they can help the people they are caring for. So this use of new technology is now developing apace, and, again, we have to take advantage.
I commend the Government for organising the G8 summit last week in London—an amazing event where we gathered support from countries across the world. I hope that next year we will be able to expand that to a global event examining dementia, not just one involving the G8 developed countries. Part of that G8 meeting was about how we get more research. I would like to see far more research on the quality of care. There is a lot, but not enough, research on the bioscience, but hardly any research on the interventions we do, particularly for people with dementia. We all know that “singing for the brain” has a great reputation. It helps cognitive development, as do art, drama and reminiscence work. There is no evidence base behind that, so if we are to have a better system of social care, we need better research into therapeutic interventions that work. That will enable commissioners to commission packages of care that they know will make a difference. If money is tight, we need to spend it on things that we know will be effective, and I ask the Minister to support that.
The Alzheimer’s Society has also done a lot of work on dementia-friendly communities. That is not expensive. It is a matter of mobilising the good will of local people, shops and arts centres. In Salford, a taxi firm has trained 400 drivers to look after people with dementia. Such care does not cost a lot of money if we can mobilise ordinary people in their communities. In Japan, 4.5 million people are signed up to be dementia friends. Our ambition is to have 1 million such friends. Again, I push the Government to be more ambitious to see what more we can do.
Clause 5 is about not just diversity and shaping the market, but quality, and that is an area about which we all feel passionate. How can we in this country tolerate a
situation in which those who do the most difficult job in caring for our friends and family are actually some of the least regarded workers? It is utterly unacceptable to have zero-hours contracts in the social care sector. The carers who care for my dad come in for 15 minutes. They will do more if they can. They have to ring up to be assessed when they have done 12 minutes. They get no payment for travelling and no expenses for their petrol. They came out one Sunday. They started at 8 o’clock in the morning and went home at 9 o’clock at night, but because they only had five hours of 20-minute slots, they got paid only for five hours. Members should try being out on a Sunday for 13 hours and going home with five hours of minimum wage payment. It is an absolute disgrace and a scandal that we tolerate that in this country. I hope the Minister will assist in bringing such practice to an end.
I want to say something about my own local authority. My hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South mentioned the fact that Salford has recently had to change its eligibility criteria from moderate to substantial and critical. We were the last authority in Greater Manchester to have to make that decision, and it was heartbreaking. Our social services have always merited four stars. When I was a councillor 30 years ago, cuts were bad, but we always prioritised social care and nursery care for children. The decision to change the criteria was not made lightly, and the cuts have been absolutely horrendous.
Let me again say to the Minister that we need creativity and imagination to deal with this matter. I want to draw the House’s attention to my unpaid interest in social finance, which appears in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. We have a real opportunity to draw extra funds into the social care system. If we could have a social investment bond that aimed to keep people with dementia in their own homes for longer, we would save the NHS a fortune. People with dementia are admitted to hospital more often. They stay longer in hospital and many more of them die there. If we could mobilise social investment to offer a reward for keeping people in their own homes, funded by the savings to the NHS, we could bring in some new money, not just what we are getting from local authorities.