Adult social care is broken. After years of marketisation and outsourcing we are left with a service where large market players dominate. Taxpayers’ money, and the savings of older people, are being extracted out of the system for shareholder gain. The Centre for Local Economic Strategies have published a report on the issues involved.
Tom Lloyd Goodwin
New publication offers a number of recommendations for local policymakers.
The Meteor, Manchester’s Independent Media Platform draws attention to the issues facing Adult Social Care. The report’s author, Tom Lloyd Goodwin, reflects on how ownership models must be shifted to fix that broken system. He concludes:
In services such as adult social care, we should be building a resurgence of a public service movement based on new forms of democratic and citizen involvement. Nevertheless, communities should not be handmaidens to the continued marketisation and erosion of public services. We are in an era of political contestation, and we ignore the UK’s austerity addled political economy at our peril.
The report makes the following recommendations to local policy makers.
- Position adult social care as a key sector within strategic local economic planning.
- Support the development of alternative models of ownership through the use of community wealth hubs.
- Explore opportunities for more insourcing – particularly within nursing and residential care.
- Make greater use of ethical care frameworks – to in effect create a form of social licensing to influence the kinds of organisations that can gain access to local care markets.
See the full article Reshaping Ownership within adult social care
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