THE Scottish Government's plans to set up a National Care Service are the “most effective way” of improving care services across the country, John Swinney has said.
The First Minister made clear the Government is still seeking to “take forward the proposals”, despite another body withdrawing its support for the legislation needed to set up the organisation.
The Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) said the National Care Service Bill “fails to address fundamental issues about how social care is delivered and has lost the confidence of workers in the sector”.
Local government leaders in Cosla and trade unions have already made clear they no longer back the legislation – which sets out to centralise adult social care and social work into a single body ultimately accountable to ministers.
The shake-up was first announced in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, but since then the proposed National Care Service has suffered delays and uncertainty over costs.
Swinney made clear however that the Scottish Government is “going to take forward the discussion on the National Care Service”.
Speaking to journalists on a visit to Kilmarnock, he said: “We’ve made it clear there is space for dialogue and agreement around the provisions in the National Care Service.”
He said the service is the “most effective way” to achieve the goal of improving care for those who need it.
Swinney added: “What we’ve got to do here is to focus on the outcome and what matters. What matters is that we all want to see an improvement in the care that is available to individuals in Scotland and we can achieve that through the National Care Service Bill mechanism.
Adding “an improvement in care arrangements” is “what people are interested in, the First Minister said: “That’s the outcome I want people to focus on and I think that is the outcome we all agree is important.
“The National Care Service Bill is the most effective way to enable us to get there.
“But we will continue to engage in dialogue with all relevant parties to make headway on the proposals.”
STUC general secretary Roz Foyer claimed the Government “seems hellbent on repeating the mistakes of the past” by pushing ahead with the legislation, adding: “That is something that the STUC and our affiliated unions cannot uphold.”
She said there needs to be “urgent investment in social care and improved wages to attract and retain skilled staff” to the sector.
This can be achieved “without the need for a new National Care Service”, she insisted, adding: “Profiteering, low pay and insecure conditions within social care are rampant throughout the sector.
“It would appear the Scottish Government, through the proposed NCS Bill, seems content for that to continue, something which we cannot allow in our name.”
The comments come as Cosla appeared before Holyrood’s Health, Social Care and Sport Committee on Wednesday to discuss the service.
Leaders announced last month that they were no longer backing the proposals in their current form.
“We are very concerned that what it looks like now is that centralisation, bureaucracy, additional layers of governance, that really isn’t what the system is looking for right now,” he said.
MSPs heard the disagreements stemmed from three main areas – the future of children’s services, the funding of integration joint boards and the ability for ministers to remove board members – but that when amendments to the bill were laid, this figure rose to seven areas of disagreement.
Kelly added: “What we are being told by those who work in social care and who use our services is the need for that investment, that look at recruitment and retention, those key issues that need to be delivered on right now.
“We don’t believe that in its current format the National Care Service is going to deliver on that and, if anything, it’s going to add that level of bureaucracy to the system that’s already struggling.”
