A former SNP Health Secretary has tore into the Scottish Government after plans to create a National Care Service were ditched.
Jeane Freeman said today she was “angry and dispirited” after John Swinney’s administration effectively abandoned the proposals last week.
The former MSP helped lay the groundwork for ambitious plans to transform how care services are run in Scotland. As Health Secretary, Freeman accepted all the recommendations made in a landmark review of the sector in January 2021.
She retired from frontline politics at the Holyrood election later that year and was replaced in the health brief by Humza Yousaf.
It was Yousaf who publicly launched the National Care Service plans in 2022 and boldly claimed it would see the biggest transformation of healthcare since the creation of the NHS.
The SNP Government wanted to create a series of care boards that operate in the same way as health boards, with Scottish ministers directly responsible.
But they faced a backlash from trade unions and local authorities after councils were told they would no longer run social care services.
Maree Todd, the social care minister, finally admitted to MSPs last week the reforms could not progress due to a lack of support.
Freeman was scathing when asked for her reaction and insisted the recommendations made by public health expert Derek Feeley should be have been implemented.
Speaking to BBC Scotland, she said the reform was undertaken because adult social care “was not equitable across the country”.
“So Derek’s remit was what do we need to do to fix art and change it. He produced a series of recommendations and we got the support of all the trade unions, of the third sector, of people representing people who receive adult social care.
“We got political support, and critically we’ve got support from Cosla for all of it, with one exception, and that was the structure change that he proposed.
“So how do I feel now? I feel angry. I feel dispirited because it is beyond my understanding how all of that support has been lost.
“And I think that the Scottish government now has a job to do, which is about focusing now in the short time it has left before the next Scottish election, not on trying to convince us that there is still a National Care Service when self-evidently nobody is convinced of that, but focusing on some of the immediate areas that need to be addressed.”
Freeman said that included “resourcing” and properly recognising the skills and the professionalism of staff working in the sector.
Asked if she thought it was bureaucracy to blame here for the end of the National Care Service, she replied: “No, my own view is that government, unfortunately, went about it the wrong way.”
Freeman added: “I don’t think that you secure change by focusing on structure. I think you secure change by focusing on what people agree on.
“And everyone agreed that the current system isn’t working and everyone agreed what needed to be done to change that system or that the content of that substantively. And I think that’s where you focus and then from there you work out the structure of delivery.
“But it’s like any negotiation, you start with where everyone agrees.
“You agree the red lines, and then you work out how are you going to navigate those red lines and that involves compromise.
“But you should never in this one lose your focus, which your focus is the people who receive adult social care. Their lives need to be made better by what we provide.”
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