Voters may want social care to be on the ballot at the UK general election, but no one seems to be listening.
“They used to say Eastbourne was the place to go to die,” sighs a woman walking along the town’s main street.
A classic British seaside town, Eastbourne — 70 miles south of London, perched on the southern tip of Britain — is both beautiful and run down. White cliffs line the seafront, a tired arcade juts out upon the pier.
Eastbourne’s population is — there’s no sugarcoating it — old.
Around 25 percent of residents are aged 65 or over — far higher than the national average of 18.6 percent. In Eastbourne and the wider East Sussex area there are an estimated 69,000 unpaid carers looking after those in need. That means a national crisis which has long gripped the U.K. is keenly felt in this quiet, sun-struck corner of the south coast.
Britain’s adult social care sector has been in turmoil for as long as most can remember — soaring numbers of elderly people and chronic underfunding posing a public policy challenge met with a distinct lack of answers by several generations of politicians.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Britain’s adult social care sector has been in turmoil for as long as most can remember — soaring numbers of elderly people and chronic underfunding posing a public policy challenge met with a distinct lack of answers by several generations of politicians.
In March, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee accused the current Conservative government of bringing the care sector “to its knees,” citing severe staffing shortages, rising waiting lists and uncertain finances.
In a statement, East Sussex Council said it has “a number of primary and secondary providers holding contracts for home care provision,” and that it strives to ensure residents “receive the appropriate support as quickly as possible.”
The Nuffield Trust described the party’s pledges as “commendable ambitions” which are “overshadowed by the lack of a costed plan for social care.” The Institute for Fiscal Studies, a respected non-partisan think tank, said Labour had provided “next to no detail on how or when these [reforms] would be implemented, or what final form they would take.”
The warm words echo Boris Johnson’s infamous ambitious but never-enacted 2019 social care plan, leading the party to run straight into the brick wall criticism during the election campaign of “why didn’t you do this before?”
Early on in the election campaign, Davey took part in a breakthrough interview with ITV News where he showcased his life juggling caring and work, tearing up as he spoke about the pressures of his competing roles.
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