An open letter to Scotland’s Health Secretary is calling for action to address the damage being done to the lives of disabled and older people and their carers by the current social care support system.

Ahead of tomorrow’s announcement by the First Minister of her Programme for Government, a coalition of organisations representing disabled people and carers is calling for “urgent, radical action” to reform social care support in Scotland.

The open letter to Health Secretary Jeane Freeman from Glasgow Disability Alliance, Inclusion Scotland and others describes how the pandemic has exposed “long-term fundamental flaws” that have led to devastating consequences for disabled people and unpaid carers.

People have had essential care cut or completely withdrawn, the charities say, leaving some bed-bound and unable to get food, and others reliant entirely on family and unpaid carers.

Despite “good co-produced work” being done by government to develop reform proposals, the authors say there is a “persistent chasm” between the Scottish government’s rhetoric on social care support and the reality of people’s daily experiences.

They say the current system has failed to achieve the goals of independent living and self-directed support and “resulted in a vast amount of unmet need which pushes people into crisis, directly undermining the goals of prevention and increasing demands on healthcare and residential care.”

“Many people need social care support, not just to stay alive,” the letter states, “but to have a life, to exercise choice and control, participate and contribute as equal citizens, and achieve even their most basic human rights.”

A new “national, transparent and accountable social care support system of rights-based entitlements” is needed, the signatories say, “one in which users have choice and control over who provides their support and how they use it; one where they do not have to pay for the support they need merely to achieve equal citizenship and human rights.”

An emergency cash boost of £100m from government to sustain social care support during the pandemic has failed to reach support users or third sector providers, according to the charities. 

“Some providers have made phenomenal efforts to continue to offer good support, choice and control,” the letter states. “However, we are aware that they have often had to do that in the teeth of a system that has sometimes hampered their efforts and, on occasion, has even undermined them. This is not sustainable.”

They are also calling for what was known as the Independent Living Fund to reopen. Established in 1988, it provided financial support for disabled people who wanted to live in the community rather than in residential care. The fund closed to new applicants in 2010.

Questions have been raised about how much of the £100m of emergency funding for social care promised by government during the pandemic had actually reached front line services.

Both the Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland and the Scottish Personal Assistants Employers Network told healthandcare.scot many of those they provide support to had “not seen a penny” of the emergency social care money.

The letter to Jeane Freeman is co-signed by Inclusion Scotland, Glasgow Disability Alliance, Lothian Centre for Inclusive Living, Disability Equality Scotland, People First Scotland, Glasgow Centre for Inclusive Living, Carers Scotland, Coalition of Carers in Scotland, and Vox Scotland.

The full text of the letter is available here. 

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