Social Care and the Role of Carers

Lord Astor of Hever Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a real honour to follow the noble Baroness, who does so much for carers. I declare an interest as the father of a profoundly autistic daughter. My experience with our daughter, whose residential care was disrupted during the pandemic, was a real eye-opener. It is an exhausting business looking after a disabled adult, tending to their well-being 24/7. I have nothing but admiration for the carers who dedicate themselves to this task and I join the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, in thanking them all.

Greater than the physical demand is a concern that our loved ones will be properly looked after when we are no longer around. A social care system for the 21st century needs to make us feel more secure on that score. Others are far worse off than my wife and me. I know a family with two profoundly disabled sons, aged 28 and 32, the elder in a wheelchair—sadly not electric because the parents are not disabled, so do not qualify. They have relied on carers provided by their local council to help with this full-on exhausting care, day after day. There is a chronic shortage of carers, who are on very low wages, in the care industry, so I join other noble Lords in asking the Minister how the Government plan to address this. Will the Government consider increasing the carer’s allowance to the minimum wage?

The closure of day centres, which provide much-needed respite from the constant, round-the-clock supervision, as well as swimming pools and places of worship, was a blow to this couple. Could special exemptions be considered in future lockdowns for disabled people and their families in well-supervised, safe environments? The imposition of strict procedures to limit the spread of the pandemic has weakened an already fragile and fragmented system, causing untold suffering. Covid exposed a plethora of gaps and shortfalls, in addition to contradictory and counterproductive measures, which unwittingly endangered people’s physical and mental well-being. In short, instead of social care, we had social carelessness.

The NHS will continue to suffer, as long as the social care structure is neglected, whether we are facing killer viruses or not. How do the Government propose, in practical terms, to better integrate adult social care services with services provided by the National Health Service?