A Plan for the NHS and Social Care

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

I want to begin by thanking NHS colleagues from University College London Hospitals and from services all the way up to Scotland, including in my Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency, for the incredibly hard shift that they have put in over the last year. The warm words of the Prime Minister telling them that he knew how hard it had been for them must be replaced by swift action.

All that the nine words in the legislative programme demonstrate is that the Government fail comprehensively to understand the interdependencies of care services, from intensive and acute care to social, palliative and end-of-life care. In his first speech as Prime Minister on 24 July 2019, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) promised to

“fix the crisis in social care once and for all with a clear plan”.

In his 2019 manifesto, he stated that his Government would seek cross-party consensus. In January 2020, he claimed that he would

“get it done in this parliament”,

yet in October last year, the Minister for Care could not give any commitment in Parliament to the Health and Social Care Committee about action on social care.

We must face the reality of a social care system that at the start of the pandemic was underfunded, understaffed, undervalued and at risk of collapse. Any response to covid-19, however fast or comprehensive, would need to contend with that legacy of political neglect. Despite the Government’s espoused commitment to improving the social care system and introducing proposals in 2021, there is nothing on how they will do so, never mind fixing the system. Integration is undoubtedly the way forward to make the system work, but that requires funding and services that are in good order before it begins. Without social care reform, a robustly funded and continuing cancer recovery plan, as well as core funding for palliative and end-of-life care, services will continue to struggle and people will suffer.

There is an absolutely foreseeable risk. Expecting integrated care systems to find the capacity to reorganise and find end-of-life care pathways with fragile resources is recklessly putting the cart before the horse. This all matters in Scotland. As ever, we are more reliant on Barnett consequentials. All the while, the UK Government find ways to squirrel money away, preventing them from triggering our share. The Alba party amendment to the Gracious Speech recognises unequivocally the recent majority for independence parties in Scotland, calling for immediate progress on independence. The fact that that sentiment has been dismissed by the UK Government comes as no surprise, but the fact that it has been neither echoed nor supported by the victors of that election will not go unnoticed at all.