Like several of his predecessors as prime minister, Andy Burnham is promising to fix the social care crisis. And this time, there is a sense that we have a leader who intends to match warm words with tough actions since he is staking considerable political capital on this cause. His speech to the Labour Party conference was infused with gratitude to the people who cared for his recently deceased father, even apologising for Westminster’s contemptuous treatment of care workers over the years. He promised his landmark policy would be the creation of a “person-centred, high-quality care service that starts in the home” and would be free at the point of use.
The plans remain vague. Yet it was good to hear this ambition placed at the core of Burnham’s speech – especially when combined with no-nonsense Baroness Louise Casey’s review of the social care system. My family spent almost three decades grappling with this floundering and under-funded sector, seeing its bureaucracy and enduring endless struggles to find staff to care for our late daughter with her profound disabilities and complex health needs. So I campaigned hard in my journalism to salvage this Cinderella public service, hearing far too many horror stories from shattered families forsaken by the state or struggling to survive without sufficient support.
Burnham’s support for care workers makes a welcome contrast with Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and Green Party of England and Wales leader Zack Polanski belittling them as bum wipers. But I worry still we are not really on the brink of finally fixing the crumbling care system. I fear there is one-eyed focus, viewing its failings largely through the prism of elderly people such as Burnham’s father and the lottery of life that leaves some families facing substantial care costs if a parent suffers dementia rather than, say, cancer in their final years. After seeing my own father’s decline, I know all about the agonies of this cruel condition for families. Yet the care crisis goes far beyond the issue of middle-class folks forced to sell homes, although this aspect dominates the discussion.
Burnham does not even hide this reality. Asked on LBC if his proposals included disabled children, he said: “No. This is adult and particularly older people’s social care.” His reply is deeply disappointing, especially when so many societal problems are rooted in shameful failures of overloaded children’s care and mental health systems. Think about the rising numbers of Neets – young people not in education, employment or training – or efforts to curb disability benefit payments and the costs of special educational needs in schools. Meanwhile, for all the talk about bed-blocking pensioners impeding the sacred NHS, the fastest-rising demand for care comes from working-age adults.
To appreciate how badly the care system has been allowed to rot while being fleeced by financial sharks, consider this fact: councils spend £353m a year to send hundreds of children – many with complex disabilities or suffering trauma due to abuse – into illegal homes. The average cost for these unregistered and unregulated units is £10,500 a week. The youngest known case involved a five-year-old. Yet this is not due to any shortage of homes: there are 15,000 places available in legal homes for 10,000 children in need of such care. And there are about 4,800 homes – numbers rising one-fifth in a year and more than two-thirds over the past five years.
The problem is many homes are built by private firms in the cheapest parts of the country, although it is usually best for children to stay close to their families and friends. Burnham’s beloved North-West region, for instance, has 26 per cent of children’s homes but only 18 per cent of the children needing them. So we see costs surge for councils while fat cats boost fortunes exploiting the crisis. Bear in mind that one in 25 people are ‘looked after’ by the state during childhood, yet one in four prisoners spent time in care, which highlights the costly consequences of this state failure.
Now let me give you another example of the problems caused by the inadequacies of this system to show the impact of inadequate care support. Seven months ago, I wrote here about the tragic case of Sam, a bright but neurodivergent young man in Manchester who became reclusive after being kicked out of school. “Over the subsequent 13 years his life has withered away as his mental and physical health collapsed, becoming more isolated and losing life skills along with confidence as he hid from the world,” I wrote.
Clearly this is a terrible waste of both life and potential. His mother Sara, a scientist with the NHS, explained how a court intervened to prevent further deterioration and premature loss of life, adding that she knew of many more families in the city also falling through the system’s gaps. Yet even when councils can find homes for such care, they are often again in the cheapest and most run-down areas – and this exposes vulnerable people to abuse, hate and violence. “The local authority is now proposing three deeply unsuitable properties – all in areas with extremely high crime, all unsafe, all incapable of meeting my son’s needs,” Sara told me last week. “Yet these are the only options being presented to us.”
This sad saga has already broken her marriage. Sara, like too many families in need of support, lives under immense stress – and in fear these systemic failures might lead to the death of her son. And this is, of course, in the city Burnham ran as mayor before entering Downing Street. Sam’s case shows some of the complexities lurking behind a corroding care system. It is not just about pensioners losing homes, protecting the NHS or even just pouring in billions. A decaying system needs salvation to deliver dignity for users, support for families and better use of funds for taxpayers, since the costs of continuing failure are extreme for citizens, councils and the country. “Is it any wonder people are giving up on politics?” asked Burnham – but does he have the bottle to really rectify these problems?
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