A Plan for the NHS and Social Care

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

Once again, despite big promises, we have a Queen’s Speech that just tinkers around the edges. It falls short of what we need for the country and what is needed for my constituents in Putney.

You may be surprised to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the volunteers at Putney Scrub Hub are still working flat out to provided much-needed scrubs for hospitals across London and beyond. Covid exposed the urgent need for a national uniform to save millions of pounds and provide our healthcare workers with the uniform they need at the right place and the right time. Instead, there is a fragmented system—a fragmented bureaucracy —that could not scale up at the speed needed. We do not pay our healthcare and care workers enough—clapping is not enough—and the very least that we can give them is the right uniform. Ministers did not step up at any stage to recognise the problem, take it on and solve it. That has still not happened. I welcome the consultation on a national uniform, such as they have in Wales. I hope that the measure will go through in the next year.

One of the biggest issues for my constituents in Putney is social care. On his first day in Downing Street, the Prime Minister promised to fix social care “once and for all”. Twenty-two months later, we have seen nothing. It has not been kicked into the long grass—it never left the long grass. This morning, the Prime Minister again said that there was a plan, but where is it? This afternoon, the Secretary of State made a passing comment in his speech at the beginning of the debate, saying that it would be brought forward this year—but, again, no plan.

Since the Prime Minister’s first day in office, dementia victims and their families have paid a staggering £14 billion for social care. The Prime Minister and the Government have let down every single one of those families, including many families in Putney. Even before the pandemic, there were 1,628 older people in Putney with unmet social care needs. That translates to 1.5 million people across the country. Adult social-care council budgets have been cut, and it is no surprise that 69% of the public believe that fixing adult social care should be a top priority as we recover from the pandemic.

We need a national social care system that is joined up with the NHS, and we need the much-promised dementia moonshot. Without life-changing treatments, the number of people with dementia is set to grow to 1 million in the next five years. No more empty promises; no more leaving families struggling and despairing. We need a clear, budgeted plan for social care reform, complete with milestones, with reform this year, 2021—not next year, not on the never-never. The reforms must improve access to care and quality of care, and provide better working conditions for care workers, with services joined up between the NHS, social care providers and community providers. I urge the Government to listen to the public and come good on their promises to fix adult social care at last so that we can all recover from the pandemic.