WHO CARES FOR THE CARERS? NO WONDER THEY ARE CONSIDERING A STRIKE

Dumbarton Notebook by Bill Heaney

A “total meltdown in the social care system” was forecast today by Dumbarton MSP Jackie Baillie just after it was revealed that council carers in West Dunbartonshire would be balloting for strike action.

A strike would be catastrophic for the Carers’ Service which is – in yet another crackpot public service set-up – financed by the council but run by the Health and Social Care Partnership, which claims it is answerable only to central government.

Commenting on an Accounts Commission report on the finances of Integration Joint Boards, Scottish Labour health spokesperson Jackie Baillie said: “Scottish Labour has long warned that the black hole in Integrated Joint Board budgets would lead to a total meltdown in the social care sector – and this report demonstrates the depths of the crisis we are now facing. 

“SNP negligence has meant that essential care services are suffering devastating cuts, with Scotland’s spending watchdog now indicating that this could see some services scaled back or even discontinued. This will have a devastating impact on vulnerable people and those requiring care. 

“This is a damning indictment of the incompetence and complacency of successive SNP ministers who have failed to heed the alarm bells that have been sounding for years. 

“We need strong and effective leadership on health and social care more than ever, but the prospect of further cuts will only increase the pressure on frontline providers and staff who deliver these services. 

“The SNP must urgently work with health and social care partnerships to come up with a sustainable plan, or it will be vulnerable people who pay the price.”

However, West Dunbartonshire Council is run by a Labour administration, who sat on their hands and said nothing at an emergency meeting of the council to discuss a redesign of the Carers’ Service.

Members of the Labour administration who sat on their hands during the special meeting about the carers’ service in West Dunbartonshire.

What’s happening is that Integration Joint Boards, such as the Health and Social Care Partnership, together with their NHS and council partners, have been urged to make a choice on where to redesign reduce or discontinue services, one of which is the Carers’ Service in West Dunbartonshire..

This comes as a warning from Audit Scotland – which audits over 200 public sector organisations to ensure public money is spent properly, efficiently and effectively – which says that mounting financial pressures are forcing tough decisions from the country’s health and social care services.

Funding to Scotland’s 30 IJBs increased by over 2% in 2024/25 to over £12bn but this has not matched rising costs and demands, with many IJBs using dwindling reserves to help meet a nearly £450m gap between demand and available funding.

Increasing demand, rising costs and a growing number of people with long-term complex needs are placing mounting financial pressures on IJBs, which Audit Scotland warns is unsustainable when compared to the funding being offered.

The public body says that the boards have now reached a critical point, with a significant risk that they will become financially unsustainable within the next 12 to 24 months.

Alongside savings and using reserves, IJBs have been relying on substantial additional funding from their partners in the NHS and councils.

Audit Scotland now says IJBs need to plan their finances more realistically to reduce this reliance, as health boards and councils face their own significant financial pressures.

Malcolm Bell, member of Audit Scotland’s Accounts Commission said: “The cost of delivering services is rising faster than available funding.

“Tackling this could include difficult decisions about redesigning or reducing services, and whether new or additional charges need to be made.

“Whatever decisions are made, service users, their families and wider communities must be consulted.

“But without radical change the services delivered by IJBs can’t be sustained.

“The gap between funding available and the cost of meeting demand is widening, and the gap of nearly £450 million cannot be bridged with savings alone.”

In West Dunbartonshire the carers have told the Council the redesign for their service is unacceptable and that it would have a detrimental impact on the people they care for.

It would mean that elderly, disabled and sick people – some of them confused with alzheimers and other serious illnesses suffered most by the elderly – would have the time their carers spend with them cut back, some to just seven minutes.

They would have to be roused each morning from as early as 7.30am and would have to get used to different carers coming to them each day since shift patterns would be changed.

It is now being proposed that there will be further delays in the implementation of the redesign until April 26 while the GMB trade union, to which most of the carers belong, and further discussion take place with the employers whether that is the Council or the HSCP.

Like so many things at West Dunbartonshire Council from bin collections to grass cutting to waste disposal to potholes in the roads to locking out the press and public from important meetings and banning The Dumbarton Democrat from asking questions to so-called communications officers refusing to communicate what is going on with the carers service is a shambles.

Needless to say we do not have a comment from the council whose communicators shamelessly refuse to communicate despite the fact that they are well paid from the public purse to do so.

If politicians really believe it’s time for a change them there would be no better place to start than the Carers’ Service.

• The number of views and visitors on The Dumbarton Democrat site this afternoon soared towards a total of 14,000 and the day is far from finished. I have no doubt that this figure far exceeds the readership of any other West Dunbartonshire publication such as The Lennox Herald, The Dumbarton Reporter, the Clydebank Post and the Helensburgh Advertiser. The Daily Record is the only national publication paying any attention to this area and its sales figure has crashed to its worst ever. Bill Heaney, Editor