As the summer draws to an end and the majority of us start forgetting about our holidays and start worrying about earning enough for Christmas, our nation’s politicians have one last knees up before getting back to work proper. The party conference season will soon be upon us and it is time for all three major parties to start talking about social care.

This year’s conferences will be the platforms for the next General Election and it is an opportunity for the parties to lay out their visions for social care.

With around 2.8 million users of care services and 1.6 million workers in the care sector, not forgetting the unknown numbers of those not known to social services and those who care for them, there is a sizeable chunk of the population directly affected by social care and those people have the right to know how politicians of all parties will move social care forward.

The debate needs to extend beyond the narrow confines of the Green Paper to encompass all aspects of social care, not just how older people will pay for care but how care for all users of care services will be funded and to what level. The debate need to extend to the workload and work roles of social workers, the effective recruitment and retention of care workers and how best to regulate the workforce.

In these times of tightening fiscal spending the debate needs to include how cuts in spending can be implemented with minimal impact on service delivery, outlining where cuts are likely to be made and the reasoning behind those cuts. The political parties need to say now which social care institutions are under review in the ‘Bonfire of Quango’s’ touted by all.

We need our political parties to be clear on their intentions regarding child and adult protection. Whilst recent child protection cases have had high media profiles we need to know what policies parties intend to introduce to prevent such cases happening again, after all, whilst we may do our damndest to prevent future cases Government policy ultimately decides what social workers and social care workers can or can’t do. The proposal for the full publication of serious case reviews by the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives is a knee jerk reaction which does not tackle the policy or issue of protection.  Little has also been said, so far, by politicians on the issue of the GSCC backlog in conduct cases or its capability to start registering thousands of domiciliary care workers next year.

If politicians want to win our votes now is the time to start talking about social care, with around 10% of the population using or working in care plus all the carers and those being cared for without social service support those who wish to form the next government must be up front and honest about what they intend for social care.