Thread by @eactnowuk

Covid surge hits care homes and hospitals as 221 outbreaks recorded in Britain

I like the fact that @DailyMirror is starting to publish #StrandedPatients numbers, which is concrete evidence of how Social Care is failing.

#FundSocCare2FixNHS

mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/heal…

12,000 people are #StrandedPatients EVERY DAY.

Social Care needs a MASSIVE funding boost, given the ENORMOUS budget deficit caused by 12yrs of deliberate underfunding.

We also need Private Care bosses to #PayCarersProperly to end the shortfall. If people can earn MORE doing

jobs like shelf stacking, with little responsibility other than ensuring the shelves are stacked & 'faced out'...then they're NOT going to want to take a role where they earn LESS to take on the life & death responsibility of Care work, are they?! ESPECIALLY when the Gov't keeps

telling people to "find better paid jobs"...

Unfortunately, despite it being made perfectly plain since the pandemic started that Care workers are essential workers, their role is NOT paid a wage equivalent to their responsibility level.

It seems like Private Care Agency

bosses would LITERALLY rather see the STATE Social Care system TOPPLE...*and* take the NHS with ot...than to raise Carers wages to a wage commensurate with the responsibility of the role.

The Torirs have spent the past twelve years undermining the Adult Social Care system, which

BEGAN with the closure of the Independent Living Fund (ILF) that provided more specialised Carers for the Severely Disabled like me. Now we often get NO Carers at ALL. Like me. Then this spread to Home Carers when the unnecessary, ideologically based 'austerity' measures meant

that instead of Social Care DIRECTLY employing the Carers, it would swap to Private Care Agencies providing the Carers, who then got paid LESS than when they were employed by the State.

This has led to PROFIT becoming the driver of Disabled & Elderly Care, instead of the

WELLBEING of the actual people NEEDING Carers.

This has been compounded by the self-destructive act of Brexit, when we WARNED, as service users that it would lead to the complete collapse of the Adult Social Care system as Private Care Agency bosses didn't pay enough for

British staff, and many of them returning to the EU would lead to...#StrandedPatients. Which would then drag the NHS down WITH Adult Social Care.

That was back in 2015 & 2016, when I still used Facebook...

I keep saying, Disabled people are the canaries in the coal mine...Y'all

NEED to start listening to us. We've been warning that a change of leader isn't delaying their overall, long-term plans.

Wharf we are seeing today is the result of 12 years of the Disabled being dismissed, ignored & ridiculed for our predictions of where the Tories were heading.

(WHAT we are seeing, obvs)

Are y'all listening YET?!

The ONLY way to fix the NHS is to fund Social Care PROPERLY *and* bring Home Carers back in-house.

Nobody should profit off the back of other people's misfortunes. It's one of the MANY issues I jabbed with free market

(HAVE. SIGH)

Capitalism.

Either way, there is a #SocialCareCrisis that's CAUSING the symptoms of #FailingNHS. We need to also ensure that the Gov't ENSURE that we #PayCarersProperly - maybe settimg an industry-specific minimum wage that's commensurate with their status as

Key workers...

All in all, if you've got this far, thank you...

#FundSocCare2FixNHS