Service user voices in social care reform

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has published a useful Viewpoint on what some users of social care make of the impending social care reforms.

The pamphlet is a useful contribution to the debate (all of my posts on this topic are linked to in this social care summary). It rightly draws attention not only to the issues of process and service delivery, but also the values base on which social care reform is being built. I particularly liked the point about 'policy panic' in the key points:

Policy panic about the tax burden of an increasing elderly population means that service users are seen as a burden, ignoring the contribution they can make and undermining proposals to increase independence, choice and control.

It is also right that the pamphlet highlights the importance of Independent Living principles in social care reform: for me, the Social Care Green Paper was strong on keeping people in their own homes with their loved ones and friends around them for as long as possible.

One point I slightly disagree with in the Viewpoint is the assertion that

Service users often aren't involved in discussions about social care funding.

Though this might have historically been the case, I think the Social Care Green Paper consultation process dispels that point. Certainly, it represents one of the most substantial consultation and engagement processes I've come across, with some 17,500 responses received and some 37 events in total being held within 3 months of the publication of the Green Paper (see column 479 here). This is backed up anecdotally by personal experience: I was responsible for the consultation response of Essex Coalition of Disabled People (see our response here) and can easily say this issue saw the highest level of interest and biggest response of any issues in the last 3 years or so.

Nevertheless, the JRF's brief publication is a useful contribution to the social care debate.