Trade unions and councils say the Scottish government's flagship bill to create a national care service (NCS) fails to address the central challenge of getting enough people to deliver social care. Opposition MSPs have meanwhile characterised the plans as an expensive power grab and will today seek to speed up the delivery of a government pledge to scrap care charges.

Ministers yesterday published the National Care Service Bill describing the creation of care boards, on an equivalent footing to health boards, as the ‘most ambitious reform of public services since the creation of the NHS’.

The government regards the bill as enabling legislation. Details on the number of care boards, who ministers will appoint to them, how they will operate day-to-day and engage with the national oversight organisation, will follow through a mix of ministerial decisions and secondary legislation.

Since last summer's publication of proposals for the new NCS in a consultation document, local authorities have said they are opposed to moving councils’ current social care operations and responsibilities across into the new national service.

Health and social care spokesperson for the councils’ organisation, COSLA, Councillor Paul Kelly says the organisation will now spend some time considering the impact the legislation will have on local communities and care staff:

“Our primary considerations are the effective delivery of vital social care services to the communities we serve and the wellbeing of our workforce.

“We have always been clear that local government should be central to the provision and delivery of high quality, locally accountable care services, that play a key role in promoting the wellbeing of our communities.

“We would reiterate our previous position that local democratic accountability is central to the way in which social care services delivered.”

Councillor Kelly added: “We are also clear that there are underlying challenges across the system requiring urgent and significant improvement, and which cannot wait for a national care service."

The trade union GMB Scotland says it can't see how care staff will benefit from the changes. Senior organiser Keir Greenaway said:

“Care staff and their fight for £15 haven’t even been an afterthought in drafting the bill, they’ve been totally left out.

“Care staff who worked on the frontline throughout the pandemic and continue to care for our most vulnerable cannot afford to wait for improved terms and conditions.

“There is plenty on new executive boards of bureaucrats, and their pay and pensions, but there is no mention of how care workers can improve their pay.

“It’s unclear how, if at all, care staff will benefit from these fag packet plans.

“The Scottish Government is in danger of overpromising on a National Care Service. If they truly value care staff and want to confront the recruitment crisis in care, they need to deliver £15 an hour and outline mandatory industry minimums across the public, private and third sector.”

The Royal College of Nursing Scotland Associate Director Eileen McKenna called on the government to recognise the role of staff in delivering high quality, safe and appropriate care and act on staffing now:

“For any social care reform to be effective, the Scottish government must urgently address workforce shortages and deliver fair pay for nursing staff working in all settings.

“Social care reform is an opportunity to ensure that we have the right numbers of staff, with the right skills, where they are needed.

“The implementation of Scotland's safe staffing legislation must form a key part of the reform process, to ensure that Scotland's care homes can safely deliver care to residents with increasingly complex health needs, both now and in the future.”

Opposition political parties at Holyrood questioned the wider cost and impact of delivering the NCS proposals.

The Scottish Conservative party says establishing the new national organisation could cost £1.3 billion over five years with up to 700 civil servants, rather than social care professionals, required to staff it.

Scottish Conservative social care spokesperson Craig Hoy said creating the NCS will divert resources away from where they are needed:

“We simply can't afford to see that sort of money diverted from frontline local services. The plans to create a National Care Service would just be a repeat of Police Scotland on an even larger scale, which led to years of scandal, financial problems and leadership crises.”

The Scottish Liberal Democrats leader Alex Cole-Hamilton called the NCS bill a ‘takeover’ and ‘top-down reorganisation’ where what is needed is action now to invest in care and carers:

“It would be terrible for care services if authority was to be taken away from local councils and permanently handed to the same Scottish government ministers who are responsible for sending untested and covid-positive patients into care homes at the start of the pandemic.”

Scottish Labour will, meanwhile, force a vote in the Scottish parliament today putting pressure on the government to meet a manifesto promise to scrap non-residential social care charges straightaway, rather than waiting for the NCS to come into being.

Health spokesperson Jackie Baillie says the money is there to meet the promise, and delivery should not be delayed:

“It would be a complete betrayal if the SNP break this promise and vote against their own policy today.

“There is no time to waste as the cost of living crisis spirals by the day, piling pressure on the most vulnerable.

“Ministers have used the promise of a National Care Service as an excuse for delay and inertia, rather than delivering improvements now.”

 

Read more: NCS Bill published; How Feeley advisers questioned conclusions; Social care regulator flags course correction.

 

Join hundreds of people who get regular bulletins of Scottish health and social care news direct to their inbox by signing up here.