Many constituents have contacted Barry in recent weeks concerning the disproportionate effect the pandemic has had on people with dementia and their families. Dementia is an illness that Barry has had personal family experience, and he will take part in a fundraising marathon walk to raise money for dementia care with the Alzheimer’s Society. The link to donate is at the end of Barry’s response to his constituents below.
This is something that is very close to my heart. I have personal family experience of dementia and know the strain that caring for parents and loved ones can put on a family. So I recognise only too clearly the disproportionate effect the pandemic has had on all of us who are coping – or trying to cope – with this horrible disease.
Despite the best efforts of care workers, NHS staff and unpaid carers, this pandemic has exposed the underlying problems with our social care system. For too long, it has lacked the priority, attention and funding it deserves, and care workers have been undervalued and underpaid.
Here in Brent the local Council acted promptly and with great foresight at the very start of the pandemic, and in February 2020 they funded PPE for care homes out of the Council reserves. They also set up temporary residential care provision for elderly people discharged from hospital, so they could isolate before they came back into their own care home.
Sadly the government – who later claimed to have “put a protective ring around care homes” did not wake up to the need to provide PPE or such interim facilities to avoid direct discharge until much later and indeed after I had raised it as a question in the House of Commons. Mistakes were made: care staff were left without personal protective equipment (PPE), thousands of older people were discharged from hospitals directly back into care homes without tests, and Ministers did not ensure that social care was given the focus it needed.
The way out of the pandemic has been provided by our scientists and our National Health Service which has enabled the success of the vaccine rollout. However, I share your concerns that so many care home staff have still not been vaccinated. Ministers should work with care home providers and local councils and do everything possible to improve uptake and ensure the easiest possible access to jabs in the local community. Again, I am pleased to say that Brent Council has been commendable in pursuing this.
On visiting arrangements in care homes, residents are now allowed one regular indoor visitor. Yet thousands of families have been prevented from seeing their loved ones, many for almost a year. I support calls for legislation to enshrine residents’ rights to visits and end the practice of blanket visiting bans. This is particularly important for care home residents with dementia - whose health can deteriorate quickly if their routines and family connections are lost.
Our social care sector entered this pandemic after a decade of cuts to local government, with £8 billion lost from adult social care budgets. Councils now face £6.6 billion in extra costs due to the pandemic, yet the Government has repeatedly delayed setting out its plan to fix social care. Indeed, there was no mention of social care in the Chancellor’s recent Budget.
We need a long-term plan of far-reaching reform to establish a properly funded social care system. People who need care, and those who provide it, cannot afford to wait any longer.
Barry Gardiner
P.S. As I said, Dementia is very personal to me from my own family’s experience. In June this year, I will take part in a fundraising marathon walk to raise money for dementia care with the Alzheimer’s Society. If you wish to donate to this cause, please follow this link- https://justgiving.com/fundraising/Barry-Gardiner-Trek26
