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Representative bodies for residential and home care providers from The Five Nations of England, Northern Ireland, The Republic of Ireland, Scotland and Wales met in Nottingham to discuss the major issues and challenges for the care sector, across our various countries.

Regulation, international recruitment, funding and the COVID-19 public inquiries featured heavily in our discussions. We were united in our belief that there is a need for a long-term and strategic approach to social care across every nation.

One of the issues that we discussed at length was the important role of pharmacy in delivering both prevention and support to the people who receive social care. We believe Pharmacists play a vital role in delivering the medication, support and information that is required to enable people who have lots of different co-morbidities to live well. The Pharmacist is a vital part of the health and social care sector and we want to see their role developed, alongside our governments understanding, that they need to be properly resourced to deliver sustainable strategies on immunisation, drug administration and prevention.

Despite the challenges affecting the care sector, the Five Nations Forum believes that with the right support, social care can take its place alongside health systems, as a vital part of national infrastructure.

ENDS

Leaders of care associations in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland met in London on 4 and 5 October 2021, for the first time since the start of the pandemic. http://www.fivenationscareforum.com/

Reflecting on the invaluable role of our care workforce in making a positive difference to the lives of others, and on their vital contribution to economic growth, we renewed our collective commitment to improving their working lives.

Throughout the darkest days of the COVID19 pandemic, care workers kept going, focusing relentlessly on the safety and well-being of others.

Now there is requirement for Governments to engage with this vital healthcare workforce to ensure they are positioned to focus relentlessly on investing in them.

In Scotland and Wales, careworkers have each been given bonuses of £500 or more in recognition of their outstanding commitment during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Northern Ireland there is commitment to do the same. The Governments of England and the Republic of Ireland have declined to acknowledge the exceptional contribution of the care workforce. Whilst the bonuses have been very much appreciated by careworkers, one-off payments of this nature do not solve underlying issues.

Increasing pay, terms and conditions of employment for the workforce, so they are on a par with equivalent roles in State-provided health services is a priority. The pandemic should signal an end to the discrimination applied by Governments towards employees in the independent and voluntary sectors who are fulfilling vital roles in caring for older and disabled people at home or in the community.

News of the Scottish government’s announcement on 5 October 2021 that wages of careworkers in Scotland will rise from £9.50 per hour to £10.02 per hour, equivalent to Band 2 healthcare assistants in the NHS, was warmly welcomed and heralded […]

#careaboutcare

The Five Nations Care Forum, which comprises representative bodies from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, England and the Irish Republic, came together in Belfast to share experiences, and improve the status and recognition of care services.

The forum discussed a range of issues that have significant impacts on the care sector, including, regulation, funding, and the potential impacts of Brexit. These discussions clearly showed there was a commonality of challenges, but also a unity of purpose in confronting them.

The event acknowledged that care services in all countries are under significant pressure, but there was a shared commitment to ensuring that there was better understanding of the role care plays in the lives of all our citizens, and the enormous contribution it makes to both local, and national economies.

Throughout the meeting, there was a strong sense that we must all coalesce to ensure a better understanding of the importance of the care sector; and a hope, that citizens, politicians and the media, will increasingly come to see that social care needs to be regarded as an essential part of the national infrastructure.

The Five Nations Forum has embraced the strapline “Care about Care” and we hope that every citizen and institution will do the same.

#careaboutcare

The next meeting of the Five Nations Care Forum will take place Thursday 18th – Friday 19th 2018 October. It will be hosted by Care Forum Wales and will take place in Cardiff, Wales. Further detail will follow.