New paper outlines counties ' four main themes to guide social care reform, County Councils Network

The COVID-19 emergency has affected every facet of England ' s public services in a manner unseen in the post-war period. But nowhere has the impact of the pandemic been felt more greatly than within the Adult Social Care (ASC) sector. Whilst the plight of care homes affected by Coronavirus in particular has been tragic, the welcome legacy of this period is that the Government is now fully committed to finally tackling an issue that has gone unresolved for decades – the need for root and branch reform of our ASC system. Despite the haste to stabilise and improve the vulnerabilities that have been so cruelly exposed by the virus, the Government must ensure that any reform brought forward is focused on people and place, delivers genuine transformation and is sustainable in the long-term. The temptation towards knee-jerk reform will be strong, but it is vital that changes to the system are fully ' future-proofed ' to address not just the immediate management of the present emergency, but also the many challenges, stresses – and opportunities – which have been identified as likely to emerge in the decades ahead. This might feel like a gargantuan task if one were starting from scratch. But luckily this thinking has been ongoing for some years now – and no sector is better placed to surmise the full scale of the r eform needed than local government, which currently delivers social care to communities, day-in and day-out. This short paper draws on this experience of local au...
Source: Current Awareness Service for Health (CASH) - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news