by Peter Beresford, professor of social policy at Brunel University and campaigner for service user involvementSex and drugs and rock and roll - just write it and I've got your attention. But sex, drugs, rock and roll and social care - that seems a complete public and political turn-off. Yet why should it be? Does it have to be? Bear with me while I try to explain.
My starting point has been the new film about the life of Ian Dury. If this film about Ian - I am Spasticus - Dury - hero of The Blockheads and 'Hit Me With your Rhythm Stick', tells us anything, it is that social care is absolutely about the big things in life - life, death - and of course, sex, drugs and rock & roll. Like many disabled people, Ian Dury had more than his fair share of social care and didn't seem to get too good a deal out of it.
Social care is critical
But as his life and the film highlight, social care can be critical in any of our lives; for some people at any time and, for others at particular times and stages. So the puzzle for me is how do policy makers, politicians, media and commentators still manage to keep social care so marginal when it actually is so central to us as human beings? How have they managed to keep the lid on it for so long that most people still don't know until something goes wrong, that they probably have little or no entitlement to it?
Let's be honest, social care is still marginal as a political and media issue. It still has seriously low priority. BBC TV's 'Casualty' for example has commanded high ratings for years and various spin-offs. So how come there's no 'Residential Home' or 'Day Centre' or even 'Home Care', clogging up the TV channels? How often have you ever heard Gordon Brown or David Cameron mention the words 'social care'? How worried does either seem to be that they may not be seen as getting social care right? Yet you know they'd have seriously sleepless nights if they thought the same was true of their NHS policy?
Same priority as health
All this is at a time when there has been so much talk about transforming social care, personalising it, breaking away from its past, with a new Social Care Bill, Green Paper, Health Select Committee Enquiry and now a White Paper promised. Shouldn't we be expecting social care to be getting the same priority as health or education or employment policy?
Of course keeping a lid on social care helps government keep down its public spending bills. But isn't there some way out of this impasse? Isn't there some way that we can put an end to the marginalisation of support and services that are actually at the heart of millions of lives? That's a question which must be answered for all our futures. Perhaps we could ask the bright brains on University Challenge or Mastermind. Social care's leaders certainly don't seem to be able to tell us.
Social care is critical
But as his life and the film highlight, social care can be critical in any of our lives; for some people at any time and, for others at particular times and stages. So the puzzle for me is how do policy makers, politicians, media and commentators still manage to keep social care so marginal when it actually is so central to us as human beings? How have they managed to keep the lid on it for so long that most people still don't know until something goes wrong, that they probably have little or no entitlement to it?
Let's be honest, social care is still marginal as a political and media issue. It still has seriously low priority. BBC TV's 'Casualty' for example has commanded high ratings for years and various spin-offs. So how come there's no 'Residential Home' or 'Day Centre' or even 'Home Care', clogging up the TV channels? How often have you ever heard Gordon Brown or David Cameron mention the words 'social care'? How worried does either seem to be that they may not be seen as getting social care right? Yet you know they'd have seriously sleepless nights if they thought the same was true of their NHS policy?
Same priority as health
All this is at a time when there has been so much talk about transforming social care, personalising it, breaking away from its past, with a new Social Care Bill, Green Paper, Health Select Committee Enquiry and now a White Paper promised. Shouldn't we be expecting social care to be getting the same priority as health or education or employment policy?
Of course keeping a lid on social care helps government keep down its public spending bills. But isn't there some way out of this impasse? Isn't there some way that we can put an end to the marginalisation of support and services that are actually at the heart of millions of lives? That's a question which must be answered for all our futures. Perhaps we could ask the bright brains on University Challenge or Mastermind. Social care's leaders certainly don't seem to be able to tell us.
Mr. Beresford, you are spot on when you say that social care is the poor relation to employment, health care and education. Social care is raised every now and then when something tragic happens and policy makers say they are sorry and we must learn from our mistakes, etc. etc., but it is soon forgotten and then placed on the back burner because it is not 'sexy' enough to raise much interest to the wider public.
Social care which involves day services is so important to the well being of many people with learning disabilities, especially people who are still living at home and being supported by their parents.
Its ironic that as my husband and I are getting older, and certainly need more support from our local authority, the services we once had are getting worse. I live in a London borough which has used the White Paper 'Valuing People. to down size its services, it uses the rhetoric of the White Paper without actually delivering it. We always presumed that we were sharing our son's care with the local authority. They provided his day care and we looked after him every night and weekends. We did not have respite care because my son did not want it and we always respected his decision to choose. We are happy when he is happy and we have said many times to the social service management 'get it right for my son and you have got it right for us.
The upshot of the closure of my son's day centre has meant to him and to us a complete upheaval of our lives. We have all lost stability and constancy in our daily lives and it has affected his mental well-being, and ours.
There may be some service users out there who are getting rolls royce services, but the majority are suffering and reacting in the only way they know how, that is to be uncooperative and disruptive.
I have written to the Health Minister asking if the Government took advice from psychologists before the White Paper was drafted and could I please have copies of these papers, but his reply was to state that there was too much paperwork to actually credibly send them to me. Yes Mr. Beresford they do want to keep a lid on it! Transparency, forget it!