This Government, with their 80-seat majority, are in an enviable position. They could put forward an ambitious and visionary plan to improve the country’s health and wellbeing and put social care at the forefront of their agenda. Yet here we are, following the biggest health crisis in 100 years, at a watershed moment, and the Queen’s Speech presents us with a Government who prioritise unnecessary and discriminatory legislation to introduce voter ID over ensuring that people can get the care that they need and over ensuring that we have a plan to train the next generation of doctors and nurses whom we will all rely on. What a waste of a precious opportunity of a mandate to bring about transformational change to the quality of British citizens’ lives.
Just nine words in the Queen’s Speech were devoted to social care, despite the Prime Minister’s promise on the steps of Downing Street 22 months ago to
“fix the crisis in social care once and for all”,
and there is still nothing on unpaid carers. Instead, reform keeps being kicked into the long grass for this overlooked and critically important sector. Although it is welcome that the health and care Bill seeks to improve integration between health and social care, it does not address the fundamental issues facing our care system in terms of structure, workforce and funding—problems that were highlighted so tragically through the pandemic. Ministers need urgently to commit to cross-party talks. They have a clear choice: to leave a lasting legacy or be responsible for an abject moral and political failure on one of the biggest public policy challenges that this country faces.
If the Prime Minister really wants us to believe that the NHS is safe in Conservative hands and that he genuinely cares about social care, then we need urgent action to ensure that we have enough doctors, nurses, carers, physios and other healthcare professionals both in the short and the long term. In 2019, there were about 100,000 full-time-equivalent vacancies in the NHS, and after a gruelling year, as we saw only yesterday with the nurse who treated the Prime Minister when he was in intensive care, many are needed. They are burnt-out, stressed and fed up of their good will being taken for granted.
With record waiting lists for both physical and mental health treatment, we clearly need some short-term solutions, but we must not shirk the long-term challenges. These shortages predate the pandemic. The Liberal Democrats support calls from the Health and Social Care Committee for a transparent and independent annual workforce report, with requirements for future staffing that cover the next five, 10 and 20 years and regular updates to Parliament on progress and resourcing. I implore the Minister to think big and not to squander this unique opportunity to bring about lasting, positive and long-term change in our health and care services and to improve the wellbeing of the British people.
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