Skelmersdale West County Councillor Julie Gibson has backed calls for a national care service in order to help tackle the crisis in social care. Her call comes after a recent Care Quality Commission Report which looked at the current crisis in the health system with delays being faced in accessing treatment and the backlog of re-arranged appointments due to Covid 19.
Cllr Gibson said: “The recently released CQC report has highlighted just how stretched the NHS is. I am regularly contacted by my residents informing me of the difficulties they are having getting GP appointments and waiting for operations. We are constantly hearing of delays in moving 999 patients from ambulances to A&E and then to a ward which is having a catastrophic effect on ambulance response times, sometimes of up to 22 hours (figs from Royal College of Emergency Medicine).
Cllr Gibson said: “At the other end of the patient journey we are also seeing significant delays in discharging patients because of the crisis in social care being felt across Local Government. Councils are finding social care budgets at breaking point as they struggle to provide care and rehabilitation for patients discharged back into the community.”
She continued: “That is why I back Labour’s calls for a national care service delivered exactly on the same terms as the NHS, publicly owned, publicly funded and free at the point of use. The starting point would be to make sure we deliver national standards for care users and better pay and conditions for staff who work in social care which will guarantee good standards of care for all. We must recognise that unless we face the crisis in social care, the NHS backlog will get worse and will become even harder to resolve.”
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