In one day, the Boris Johnson's, Tory Government has Broken Two Key Promises

Summary of article in The Guardian

Another day, another assault by this Tory government on the very voters who gave it such a stonking majority.

The change in social care subsidies in England, sneaked out under the shield of their own sleaze scandal, is a finely targeted strike on older, less affluent homeowners living in northern English seats. These are the very people Boris Johnson now likes to claim as his own. Boris’ manifesto promise, repeated time and again, was that people would not lose their homes through the unlucky “bolt from the blue” of needing care in old age. Well, now they will. Another lie from Boris Johnson & his Tory government

With a new manipulation of the figures that create an £86,000 cap on care costs, the Treasury claws back some of its high cost – but all of it taken from those with less valuable assets.

On the same day another lie, another missile lands on his target voters:

The northern rail promises hit the buffers:

• Forget Bradford
• Forget Leeds.

How reckless that in such a short time two key “red wall” promises Johnson made in 2019 have become serious electoral liabilities.

The Real Catastrophe

• Frail people being left at home alone without support, as care is increasingly rationed
• The low quality of care: with 15-minute home visits
• The inadequacies in service provision found in Care Quality Commission inspections

The King’s Fund says many of these services never improve. Difficulty in recruiting staff may make improvement even harder.

All the attention has been on who should pay for social care, and how much. But that should be a sideshow, as it doesn’t touch the real catastrophe: lack of care, low standards and blocked NHS beds.

The real crisis is the 1.5 million people denied enough care, people who would have received it in 2010, according to Age Concern.

Wasn’t this all “fixed” with the £12bn national insurance rise – the increase the Conservatives called the health and social care levy? In a word, no.

Meanwhile, as the NHS crisis grows, The lack of NHS beds, many occupied by people waiting for social care, causes blockages in A&E, and the pile-up of ambulances we have seen outside hospitals.

How many NHS beds are blocked? Conveniently, last year the government paused counting and publishing those figures.

Remember that “oven-ready plan”?

There is no social care plan, only a homeowners’ inheritance plan. There is no plan to reorganise the shambolic patchwork of care providers; so many understaffed, while others are in debt to private equity firms.

With 100,000 vacancies in the sector, and the number growing, the Tories have no care workforce plan. We need a national care service, with pay and career paths integrated with the NHS.

Full stoy at The Guardian