Scarborough care group boss calls for urgent reform to cope with second wave

The Independent Care Group (ICG) called on the Government to provide urgent, emergency short-term support to care providers before the second wave impacts further upon the sector.

It is also calling for longer-term root and branch reform of the sector to tackle a staffing crisis, increasing home closures and a rising number of people going without care.

The calls come after latest figures today showed another increase in deaths from coronavirus in care and nursing homes across England and Wales.

ICG Chairman Mike Padgham said: “The figures are creeping up and we must not forget, these are people’s loved ones – a wife, a husband, a mother, a father, an aunt, an uncle, a brother or sister.

"We have to have better financial support to care and nursing homes now and fundamental reform of the sector for the future.”

Today’s figures from the Office for National Statistics show the number of Covid-19 deaths in care and nursing homes across England and Wales at 46 for week ending October 2.

That is up from 38. 31, 27, 17 and 23 for the previous weeks.

It means 15,646 people died from Covid-19 in care and nursing homes from December 28 to October 2.

Mr Padgham added: “We are seeing evidence now of homes closing at a critical time when Covid-19 deaths in homes are rising.

“We have warned all along that the financial implications of coping with coronavirus would be the final straw for a sector that is already in crisis.

"The Government must act urgently or there will not be enough homes to cope with the second wave.

“We have to get more people into the sector to address the staffing crisis social care has, with 100,000 vacancies on any one day.

"The only way to do that is to pay social care staff better for the amazing job they do, not just during coronavirus but all the time.

“Before coronavirus we knew there were at least 1.5m people living in this country without the care they need. With coronavirus, heaven knows what that figure is now.

“Under-funded and neglected by government after government, coronavirus exposed a social care system that was already in crisis and plunged it into further despair.”

The ICG is also seeking clarity over visiting.

Among the things the ICG also wants to see, are:

• A root and branch overhaul of the way social care is planned and funded

• NHS care and social care to be merged and managed either locally or nationally

• Extra funding for social care, funded by taxation or National Insurance

• A guarantee that people receiving publicly-funded care can receive it in their own home or close to where they live

• A national scheme to ensure people save for their own care, as they do for a pension