We all remember the devastating scenes in Scotland’s care homes during the pandemic. Covid ripping through care homes, staff unsupported in their work and families unable to contact loved ones.
Across our politics, we agreed that this must be a turning point in how we view and value our care service. After over a decade of opposition to Scottish Labour’s calls, the SNP finally endorsed the need for a National Care Service to deliver higher standards of care and better working conditions.
Returning to parliament, we all resolved to work together to make this happen. But three years, three health ministers and three First Ministers later and the SNP’s plans have been put on ice.
The fact is that this is yet another example of the fact that no good idea ever survives contact with the incompetence of this SNP government.
On Thursday morning, the Social Care Minister formally slammed the breaks on the SNP’s botched National Care Service plans. Their plans are a National Care Service in name only – one that fails to deliver the change we need to see. It’s why their plans are opposed by care users, experts in social care, Scotland’s local authorities and every major trade union representing care workers.
So far around £30m has been wasted by the SNP on their botched. That money could have funded one million of hours of care at home – instead, we have had years of chaos, delay, incompetence, and waste.
After 17 years of the SNP, our care system is fundamentally broken. Over 9,000 Scots are waiting for an assessment or a care at home package. The number of care homes in Scotland has plummeted by almost a fifth.
And their failure on delayed discharge has cost the Scottish taxpayer over a billion pounds – all while thousands of Scots are seeing their care packages cut.
While the SNP has wasted years fighting for this failed plan, families have spent years fighting for basic reforms to support their loved ones such as Annes Law or the Right to Respite. These vital reforms would give families the guarantee that they can see their loved ones in care homes and would deliver more rights for carers and care workers.
These reforms could have been delivered by now, but instead the SNP deliberately tied them to this bill – meaning families have to wait and wait for justice. Frankly, this process has been a shambles and a disgrace.
From the housing emergency to the ferry fiasco, from the crisis in our NHS to an epidemic of violence and falling standards in our schools, too many Scots will be sat at home with their heads in their hands thinking: ‘why can’t this government even get the basics right?’
We all want to see a National Care Service worthy of the name that delivers for care users and those that work in our care sector. But all the SNP offer is more waste, bureaucracy and incompetence. Scots are tired of SNP failures and broken promises – that’s why it’s time for a new direction.
DOUBLE JOBBING HYPOCRISY
This week, we saw just the latest examples of the SNP believing it is one standard for them and another standard for everyone else. It is just sheer hypocrisy and further undermines trust in politics.
For years they condemned those that were double-jobbing as MP and MSP, but now SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn and a third of SNP MPs wants to do the same. It’s hardly a vote of confidence in John Swinney and SNP MSPs.
Then there is SNP Health Secretary Neil Gray who last week apologised for using ministerial cars for attending Aberdeen football matches which he said was important government business, this after the SNP spent weeks attacking others politicians for attending sporting events.
We already know that the SNP don’t believe the principles of accountability and transparency apply to them. People are also sick of them not taking responsibility and always looking for someone else to blame. Scots deserve a government that holds itself to the high standards that the public expect, not one that thinks that the rules don’t apply to them.
HELP FOR BUSINESS
It was fantastic to meet the team at Hanover Health in Edinburgh to hear about what more can be done to help small businesses. Scottish Labour is calling for rates relief to be extended to support small and high-street businesses and to level the playing field in our economy. This winter – remember to take your vitamins!
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