Responding to the Government’s review of health and social care leadership, Cllr David Fothergill, Chairman of the Local Government Association’s Community Wellbeing Board, said:
“Social care is a complex arena spanning multiple partners across the public, private and voluntary sectors. For a long time, there have been significant challenges, including financial and workforce pressures and the COVID-19 Pandemic has only exacerbated these issues. As rewarding as they can be, leadership positions in social care are therefore demanding, challenging, and can be draining, and we are asking more of leaders at a time of significant challenge.
“There are excellent leaders throughout social care demonstrating the right culture of compassionate, inclusive and collaborative leadership that is needed for today’s challenges. The right culture is vital to good quality care and must not be sidelined by a sole focus on efficiency. Learning from the best to help drive further improvement across the board is central to local government’s sector-led improvement mission. The Review team must work closely with local government to utilise councils’ expertise and help inform their recommendations.
“There is no additional funding for frontline social care from the estimated £36 billion to be raised by the new UK-wide Health and Social Care levy over the next three years. Addressing the NHS backlog and freeing up hospital beds cannot be done without also fixing social care and we are calling on the Government to commit to a greater share of the Levy to go to frontline social care from the outset.
“The upcoming Spending Review must also provide new investment to stabilise social care and allow local leaders to deliver on the Government’s aims of driving efficiency and innovation.”