AN urgent letter from campaigners warning of the chronic staffing crisis in care homes has finally been addressed - four months after it was sent.

Mike Padgham, Chair of the North Yorkshire-based Independent Care Group (ICG) wrote to the Health Secretary Sajid Javid about the shortage of front-line care staff, on August 19.

But he has only now received a reply.

Mr Padgham said: “I think that tells you everything you need to know about the urgency with which the Government treats the care of our most vulnerable.”

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In his letter, Mr Padgham said the crisis in social care staffing levels was so bad that care and nursing homes and those providing care in people’s own homes could no longer cover shifts.

At the time, he urged Mr Javid to seek a recall of Parliament from its summer recess to tackle the situation.

He wrote: "The staffing crisis is now so bad that providers are battling day to day to cover shifts both in homes and in looking after people in their own home.

"Many say it is the worst they have known in more than 30-years and so we need urgent action now, before the added pressures of winter turn this into a total meltdown.

"I would suggest that the situation is so dire that Parliament should be recalled to take action, before the care of our oldest and most vulnerable people is put at any further risk."

The reply came this week from Ministerial Correspondence and Public Enquiries at the Department of Health and Social Care.

It reads: "Thank you for your correspondence of 19 August about social care.

"I have been asked to reply and I apologise for the delay in doing so.

"This has been caused by an unprecedented volume of incoming correspondence during recent months."

The letter then sets out the Government’s September announcement of an additional £5.4b over the next three years and the new £86,000 cap on lifetime care costs.

Mr Padgham said: “It is disappointing that the department took so long to reply and then answered with information that we already know.

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“The changes set out in September are a start but will go nowhere near addressing the shortage of 120,000 staff or the deep-rooted crisis in care which has left 1.5m without the care they need.

The ICG is calling for an overhaul of the way care is funded.

Mr Padgham said: “Social care has been chronically under-funded for a generation and the rigours of Covid-19 has left it on its knees, struggling to provide care for our oldest and most vulnerable in care and nursing homes and in their own homes.
“Financial cutback after financial cutback has left the provision of care in tatters. We deserve better than we are being given at the moment and I think the urgency with which we received this response shows you that.”

 

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