“If the First Minister is to implement his vision for prevention, we need emergency social care investment now to stem the loss of services”

 

This morning I attended the First Minister’s event to launch his vision for the future of health and social care, which is rooted in the recommendations of the widely-supported 2011 Christie Review. This meant a re-commitment from Mr Swinney to the core principle of investment in prevention and early intervention as the basis of transformation. 

In April the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s sustainability report suggested that, in economic terms, this is the right approach to avoid spiralling health costs threatening to undermine the entire Scottish economy.

But the government faces more than the infamous Scottish policy implementation gap as it launches this vision. If it can’t root this announcement for the future in the reality of what people are experiencing now, it will face a serious expectations gap perilously close to the 2026 election.

Whilst I can wholly support the FM’s vision to re-invigorate Christie, the fact is that preventative supports are the very services being decimated locally as Integration Authorities look into a £500m funding gap and as support providers, like the not-for-profits CCPS represents, feel the effect of years of underinvestment and devastating national insurance bills imposed by the Chancellor last October.

As services are forced to shrink we are seeing long waits for care and support which is too often now only available when people reach crisis point. If you are trying to get help for a parent with dementia, your teenager struggling with their mental health, or your brother struggling with addictions and facing homelessness, you know this already. Prevention is a long way from reality.

CCPS, with partners across the sector, has shared the severe risks that Scottish and local governments are facing and the importance of an immediate injection of money into the system to avoid harms to people and families who need support to live – let alone to live a good, fulfilled and independent life.

So, if the FM wants to deliver this change for the Scottish people (as I absolutely know he does) he has to immediately stabilise a social care sector on its knees – to put out the fires so there is a sustainable platform for future change.

And he can. If he chooses.

Next week sees the publication of the Scottish Medium Term Financial Strategy. Last week the UK Government announced a year on year 3% increase in health spending in England in the Spending Review. In the past this government has committed the totality of such additional NHS England spend to health spending in Scotland. But our government has integrated the health and social care sector, and its funding.

So, this is our ask of the First Minister after his speech today: commit a majority of the additional funds arising from English health spending to the desperately underfunded social care and support services you need. Make it the first, visible step to the transformative vision you’ve outlined.

Stabilise us now to allow us to help you deliver this welcomed vision, which we want to do. You need us and so do the Scottish people. You know the risks of not doing this; the 1 in 25 Scots needing social care this year, and their families, live that risk every day.

For our sector, this is the hope the FM opened his speech saying was much needed in Scotland.