It's time to care about care

We want to see care services that put the dignity of individuals and the quality of services before profit. The challenge of Covid-19 has made the crisis in care even more acute.  Many people who rely on care within their own homes have seen their support reduced or just completely removed.

The movement of people from hospital settings, without consultation and without being testing, into care homes to accommodate Covid-19 patients was a human rights scandal. This contributed to the devastating reality of care homes becoming the epicentre of the pandemic and half of deaths across the country being people from care homes.

Scotland’s social care workers have been on the front line in the fight against Covid-19 and it is time to give them the respect they deserve.

Instead the SNP government has put these staff and the people they care for at risk with the provision of substandard and insufficient PPE and by delaying the routine and regular testing of staff and care users, which is still not happening consistently.

Scotland needs a plan to transform social care. The SNP could have done this during their 13 years in government but failed to make social care a priority. Scottish Labour knows that urgent reform and investment is needed and that’s why we are working with the public to make our vision for a National Care Service a reality.

We don’t want to just talk about the problems, we want a plan for how things could be better. We want to hear from people who work in and who use care services in Scotland. We want to listen to their ideas for what could be done better and the reforms they want to see.

To make your views known please take part in the short survey below for your opportunity to inform our plan to transform Scotland’s care services.