By Bill Heaney
The proposed National Care Service would have been “nothing more than an expensive power grab that would do nothing to improve the lives of care users”.
And this week, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar nailed down the lid on its coffin when he told MSPs: “This morning, the social care minister formally slammed the brakes on the Scottish National Party’s botched national care service plans.
“As I pointed out to the First Minister a month ago, those plans are opposed by care users, unions and experts and are nothing more than an expensive power grab that would do nothing to improve the lives of care users.
“So far, around £30 million has been wasted due to SNP incompetence. That could have funded one million hours of care at home.
First Minister Anas Sarwar and Labour leader Anas Sarwar clashed over care service.
“That is shocking when so many Scots are in urgent need of support. Instead, we have had years of chaos, delay, incompetence and waste. Will John Swinney apologise to all those who have lost out on vital support and to those who are getting their care packages withdrawn right now?”
“I accept that there is a lot of opposition to the national care service from a variety of institutional stakeholders, and I recognise the issues within Parliament.
“That is why the Government is taking time to engage substantively on the national care service and to put in place arrangements to tackle the issues that Mr Sarwar and I agree on, which are the unacceptable variation of care in different parts of the country, as well as the postcode lottery that exists in the treatment and support of vulnerable people in our society.”
Organisations such as the Health and Social Care Partnership in West Dunbartonshire are responsible for running social care services at present.
“Our care system is fundamentally broken. More than 9,000 Scots are waiting for an assessment or a care-at-home package right now. The number of care homes in Scotland has plummeted by almost a fifth, and the Government’s failure on delayed discharge has cost the Scottish taxpayer more than £1 billion.
“As we speak, Scots’ care packages are being cut by the SNP Government. While the Government has been fighting for the failed national care service plan, families have been fighting for basic reforms to support their loved ones, such as Anne’s law—the right to visit family members in care homes—and the right to respite.
“Those could have been delivered by now, but, instead, the SNP deliberately tied those measures to the failed National Care Service (Scotland) Bill.
“After years of chaos, waste and incompetence, will John Swinney finally ditch his discredited plan and, instead, immediately implement Anne’s law and the right to respite?”
Mr Swinney quoted Donald Macaskill, the chief executive of Scottish Care, who said: “We are concerned that Scotland’s many care organisations will struggle to pay the extra payments and may in turn end up going out of business.”
The First Minister maintained: “None of us wants to see that. Therefore, we must ensure that we have in place a sustainable approach to investment in social care. The Government is doing that by improving pay rates and investing in social care, and it is a priority in the budget negotiations in which we are all involved.
“I respectfully encourage and invite Mr Sarwar to work with the Scottish Government to ensure that the funding settlement from the United Kingdom Government is able to be deployed on 1 April to invest in social care, and I encourage the Labour Party to vote for the Scottish Government’s budget, which will make provision for that.
“Not doing so will mean that the Labour Party is turning its back on those in our country who depend on social care, which it has done once already with the employers’ national insurance contribution changes.”
“The process to establish the national care service has been a shambles and a disgrace—three years, three health ministers, three First Ministers, and nothing to show for it.
“It is just more SNP incompetence and waste, which are holding Scotland back. From the housing emergency to the ferry fiasco, from the crisis in our NHS to the epidemic of violence and falling standards in our schools, Scots will be watching this Government and wondering why it cannot even get the basics right.”
“Mr Sarwar raised the issue of employers’ national insurance contributions. I have explained it to him often enough, so Mr Sarwar knows that the UK Government should have increased income tax.
“If it had increased income tax, as we have done here—if it had taken that honest decision—it would have avoided putting businesses in the position of going out of business because of an increase in employers’ national insurance contributions.
“That will have an effect on care providers in our country.
“Mr Sarwar will, week after week, as I take him through this, collide with the hard reality that what his UK Labour Government has done has increased the burdens on businesses and made it difficult for them to contribute to social care.
“For all Mr Sarwar’s rhetoric, he has to get behind the Government’s budget, because if he does not, he will be turning his back on the vulnerable in our society.”