Consumers create & drive change; if we fail to notice and or respond to change then consumers vote with their feet; to survive you must be responsive.
BUT, what about social care? Who really drives change?
With the introduction of the care act in a couple of weeks it is very clear that it's not the users of the service.
Whilst there are many points in the act that I 'think' I welcome, I can't help but think that social care will be driven down market, with greater focus on outcomes (in my view), being used as a smokescreen for more red tape, reducing direct care hours & increasing the reliance upon assessment & paperwork. Now don't get me wrong, assessment & paperwork are integral to the delivery of quality social care, but not as important as utilising the skill, creativity & passion of a skilled workforce, in delivering outcomes directly to the individual & not to an outdated even though it's just be updated) CQC regimen.
The act itself claims to put the individual at the fore of choosing the assessment process, meaning they are in complete control of how & where to spend their finances, BUT as they say the devil is in the detail, whilst in words this sounds good, the reality is that this is yet another tokenistic approach to putting people in control, as ultimately local authorities will decide what is in the persons best interests even where the individual self assesses........ I believe they have used this 'get out clause' to ensure that yet again they can use this as a driver to ensure that they have control of the ever dwindling purse strings; given that most if not all councils refuse to go over budget, even if this means the quality of care for the individual is reduced.
Ahhhhh but some argue the section which strongly promotes & urges the use of advocacy to ensure that users of service get the right funding, the right support & have total control over their lives BUT, we have to remember that social care covers hundreds of thousands of users, yet the national budget set for advocacy initially stands at £14.5 million, so yet again, insufficient funding to ensure individuals are supported to exercise their rights.
So all in all yet another piece of legislation that promised so much fails to deliver total person centred control, this in my opinion is another nail in the quality coffin of social care.
