Covid-19: Government failed to protect social care during pandemic, say experts.

Abstract

The covid-19 pandemic has exposed longstanding failures of successive governments to ensure that the social care sector in England is properly funded, staffed, and stable, concludes a new analysis from a leading think tank. The Health Foundation published two briefing papers on 30 July analysing the effects of the pandemic on social care users and staff in England1 and the policy response so far from the government.2 The papers were published just a day after the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee criticised the government for its “inconsistent and at times negligent approach” to social care during the pandemic.3 Overall, the Health Foundation authors said that their findings provided more evidence that the government had acted too slowly, provided insufficient support to social care, and given far lower priority to protecting social care than to the NHS. …