Adult Social Care

Debate between Andy Burnham and Lisa Nandy

Thursday 8th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

The two systems do not work in such situations. The health service is intrinsically tied up with the social care system, and if it collapses the health service cannot discharge people from hospital. It is a false economy.

As for what is happening on the ground, the Minister commented on funding nationally, but in reality eight out of 10 councils now provide care only for those with substantial or critical needs: they are restricting their eligibility criteria. Age UK estimates that that leaves 800,000 people without any formal support, representing plenty of unmet need, and the situation also leads councils to increase charges for home care. The average cost for a disabled or older person paying for 10 hours a week of home care is now £7,015 a year. Never mind a death tax, that is a stealth tax—or a dementia tax, as people pay more and more for the costs of care while they are alive. It is not fair, it is not right, and we should do something about it.

That is why we say to the Government that we must address the question of the local government baseline alongside that of Dilnot. There cannot be a choice; we have to do both. If we do not and we fund only Dilnot, a larger number of people will pay increased charges but with a cap on what the charges might be, and that will not feel like the leap forward or the social progress that the Care and Support Alliance and others are looking for. It will not help us to drive up quality in the care system, either, but we desperately need to do so.

Councils are being forced to stretch inadequate budgets ever more thinly, and that is leading to corners being cut. I shall illustrate that directly with an example from my constituency. Several years ago, Wigan council contracted out home care services in our borough, and staff were transferred to a number of private providers, which have changed hands over the years. Just after Christmas, home care workers in Leigh came to my surgery and told me how things had broken down over the Christmas period, leaving vulnerable people, frankly, unsupported. They showed me the timesheets that they had been given by the company they were working for, and one of them included four simultaneous bookings for 12 o’clock—a point that I think my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South made—on different sides of town, with no travel time built in. Impossible. If we look at the whole day, we find appointments within 10 or 15 minutes of each other, which are meant to include travel time as well as time for looking after older people. That is fundamentally unacceptable.

I was told about staff working extra hours because of that situation, and then not being paid. They said that equipment such as aprons and gloves was not being provided, and that staff were funding them out of their own pockets, which again is absolutely wrong. They also raised concerns about rotas being issued only the night before, and care assistants not having keys to get in to meet the service-users they were visiting. Across the board, there were terrible problems and vulnerable people were being left without support.

Members might think that the company in question is a small, local one, but in fact it is Alpha Homecare Ltd, which is wholly owned by Carewatch Care Services Ltd, a national company with 154 offices nationwide. That is an example from Leigh, but I bet that other Members could cite similar ones.

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

I too have been visited by employees of Alpha Homecare in my neighbouring constituency. Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the real concerns is that because those women are so dedicated to their work and often pick up work out of hours, without being paid to do so as they told me, it masks the fact that the situation is probably much worse than it appears on paper?

[Andy Burnham]

That is absolutely the point. This is not responsible capitalism; it is the worst kind of capitalism—making money by leaving vulnerable people unsupported and, as my hon. Friend says, taking advantage of the commitment and vocation of those on the front line, who will not walk away from the people they care for. It is unacceptable to not pay them and let them buy their own equipment, and to make profits off the back of that kind of behaviour.