PowerSwitch

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm27yr56peyo

Sir Keir Starmer’s first five months have produced little sign of a plan for Labour’s promised National Care Service – and now I’m told there is a “genuine impasse” at the top of government over what to do about social care.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting publicly acknowledges “we can’t solve the NHS crisis” without improving what a government source describes as an “appalling” situation, in a system that’s meant to look after vulnerable and elderly adults in England.

But multiple sources tell me the Treasury is deeply nervous about the cost and that the prime minister is yet to make a decision on how to proceed.

Talks have so far failed to decide even whether to hold another review of the system. “Dither, dither, dither,” said one insider involved in the discussions.

But another source said: “Everyone wants to fix it but we don’t want to embark on something that then doesn’t happen.”

You really need to read the whole article. The social care system is on the verge of being completely broken, which in turn makes it impossible to fix the NHS. But the cost is enormous and the government has no way of raising the money without choking off the growth they are so desperate to generate. On top of all that we have an aging population and therefore the demographics is working against us as well. Maybe the problem cannot be fixed. If this Labour government can't or doesn't fix it, then it won't get fixed. The bottom line is that there is no coherent plan for dealing with adult social care and we are heading towards an unprecedented situation. We can't even say it is going to go back to how things were before the NHS was created, partly because average life spans have significantly increased and partly because at that time people could be cared for by their own families -- society has changed, most women aren't housewives anymore, people have come to expect not to have to look after their parents.

Labour's problem has now become how they break this news to the public, or how they try to hide it. But I don't see how they *can* hide it, given that they will be crucified at the next election if they attempt to do so. They've either got to do something about the problem, or admit that they can't.

This problem has been obviously inevitable for decades. On top of the demographic bulge, poor diet, obesity and sedentary lifestyle have been growing problems for decades. The industrialisation of food production, especially ready meals and over processing of pre-prepared food and replacement of fat by sugar have devastated the health of the nation, especially the poor. This is the major cause of obesity, where sugars and processed carbohydrates fail to trigger satiation leading people to overeat calories. The sell off of school playing fields and the universal bussing and driving kids to school, and the end of kids walking and playing in the streets triggered more obesity. Medicine is keeping us for longer, but we are much sicker. Also, mental health is much worse, due to the stresses and industrialisation of child rearing, both parents at work, the 1984 levels of monitoring, beaurocracy and testing of daily life.

There is no alternative to adult social care that does not involve healthy people looking after sick people for many hours every day, and we do not have enough healthy people. Social care has been the key cause behind the big rise in legal immigration since Brexit, low paid low status staff from developing nations with few rights and nowhere to live. The bottom line is that we either import healthy people to look after our old and sick, or they will die in misery and blame the very immigrants who could be caring for them for the economic woes of the nation.

The truth is that this is a global problem in the developed world and China, it is an inevitable part of the limits to growth

Ralphw2 wrote: ↑17 Nov 2024, 07:41 The bottom line is that we either import healthy people to look after our old and sick, or they will die in misery and blame the very immigrants who could be caring for them for the economic woes of the nation.

Does importing people solve the problem in the long term? Or does it eventually make things even worse?

Ralphw2 wrote: ↑17 Nov 2024, 07:41 low paid low status staff from developing nations with few rights and nowhere to live. The bottom line is that we either import healthy people to look after our old and sick, or they will die in misery and blame the very immigrants who could be caring for them for the economic woes of the nation.

The truth is that this is a global problem in the developed world and China, it is an inevitable part of the limits to growth

I really really don't want to pay workers a fair wage!