If you had the chance to share your top priorities for action in social care to a room full of over 200 senior leaders at the Kings Fund’s State of Social Care conference in London this week, what would you say?
SCF Convenor Andy McCabe was an invited panellist for opening plenary – a conversation on the key opportunities and challenges for social care now and in the future, chaired by Sarah Woolnough, Chief Executive of the Kings Fund.
Andy was asked by Sarah how the system feels for someone who draws on care and support. He replied it was “precarious” and then described solutions including supporting a change in culture to enable “people to be the authors of their own lives, not characters in someone else’s story about their life”. He said this included money in the system being freed up for approaches that are rooted in supporting people to live a good life, not just being kept alive:
“We see people striving to change how things are done across the country every day… We know how to do this, but we have designed rules and systems that reward throughput above lives lived well, and which attach no real value to expanding freedom and wellbeing.”
“We need to reform how direct payments work, not just keep going with the current cycle of review and reduce. The review process is where values reveal themselves and we want the question to be how do we help this person keep living the life they’ve built, over one that focuses on cutting budgets.
“The government’s own workforce survey shows that personal assistants — people employed directly by disabled people to support their lives — report significantly higher wellbeing and job satisfaction than the rest of the social care workforce. Not because they’re paid more. Because they’re freed to support someone live a life with wellbeing, connection and purpose.”
Andy also challenged the room to change the story we tell of social care, asking if there was the will and the imagination to do it:
“Social Care Future has done the research on this. We know what narrative shifts public thinking. If we want a system built around people’s lives, people need a genuine share of the power to build it.”
Andy was joined on the panel by Vic Rayner, CEO of the National Care Forum, Kelvin Imoloame, Vice Chair of UNISON’s National Social Care Committee, Andrew Harrop, Director of Public First and Phil Holmes, the President of the Association of Director’s of Adult Social Services.
Read Andy’s further reflections in his latest blog
