Have you ever kicked the can? I have to be honest and say I’ve never been particularly good with my feet so every time I’ve ever tried to kick a can I’ve either missed the can or sent it off in completely the opposite direction to my intention. Sometimes I’ve even managed to kick it so hard that I’ve lost the can.
Which makes me wonder what is it about social care that means our politicians are constantly kicking the can, or sending the can off in a totally different direction to their intention – or just missing the can altogether.
Perhaps that’s why it’s going to take three years for the latest review into how to improve social care to be published because maybe the politicians don’t know how to kick the can with any accuracy – even though they may think they do.
As many commentators have already stated, it isn’t necessary to wait for years to come up with a solution on how to improve social care. Yes, some of it’s about money. Though it’s not just about money. It’s also about getting us out of this utterly daft assumption that the primary role of social care is about hospital discharge, or to put it another way propping up the NHS.
Now if we do need time to reflect and consider and explore all the options, here are my tips for the social care commission.
Everything needs to be co-produced.
That means that Louise needs to have two co-chairs. One needs to be someone with lived experience and one needs to be a family carer. Both these people need to have equal power to Louise and to anyone else involved in the commission.
Don’t take the tech people too seriously.
Social care is a people business although technology does have a role. Technology can’t save social care. If the technology is doing it’s job it won’t mean we need less social care workers as the biggest danger from tech is that it could leave people lonely and without care and support for days at a time. This could lead to loneliness and physical and mental health issues at the very least and very probably to issues that weren’t there before that person was left on their own with the technology.
It’s also very easy to be taken in by the tech people and waste loads of cash on tech that never gets used (we probably all have tech in our cupboards that we spent loads of money on, used once or twice and then forgot about). I know of at least one council who spent millions on technology assisted care only to find that most of it ended up sitting in boxes behind people’s sofas because nobody knew how to use it, what it was for, or why they’d been given it in the first place.
When you’re looking at who to involve in the conversations.
about how to fix social care, make sure that the voices that are most heard are of the people who have lived experience, their families and people who work in social care. In particular, listen to new voices – people with a lived experience, and people who are working directly with people. In every conversation these are the Individuals you need to hear and to listen to. As much as you can, avoid the great and the good and those that live in Ivory Towers.
Involve a small number of colleagues from secondary healthcare and more colleagues from primary healthcare.
Make sure at all points in the conversations that the people who work in social care or receive care and support from social care are in the majority. Yes our colleagues in healthcare are important, however social care is not there to fix challenges in healthcare. For many people who either work in social care or draw on social care and support from social care workers, health is no more important than it is to the general population.
Listen to people in the justice service, housing service, sports and leisure industry and the arts.
Many of the people who work in these industries have a social care and support element to what they do. Housing, justice, sports and leisure and the arts are often much more important to people who draw on social care support than health is.
Remember that most social care is delivered by people who live in their local communities.
A national care service needs to be dynamic and flexible enough to be place based at a very, very, very local level.
As for kicking the can, some might say it’s the right thing to do for now. However as you kick the can, think about which foot you’re going to use and think about where you intend the can to end up.
Think about the contents of the can.
If it’s baked beans – make sure that your social care solutions aren’t just a load of old wind.
If it’s fruit make sure that it’s mixed fruit – there isn’t just one answer to social care because social care is not one thing.
If it’s soup – make sure there’s plenty of flavours because not everybody in social care is looking for the same taste.
Finally – look at the use by date on the can as the last thing we need is for the contents to go off before it’s been feasible to implement them across the whole of social care.
Jim Thomas
January 2025
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