NCF chief Vic Rayner told the inquiry that failing to recognise the importance of social care led to devastating consequences

 

Evidence gathered during the COVID-19 Inquiry demonstrated a “significantly bleaker” situation faced by the social care sector than originally realised, an industry leader has said.

In her opening statement in June, Vic Rayner, CEO of the National Care Forum (NCF), told the inquiry that social care had been “overlooked, misunderstood and disadvantaged”, which worsened the impact of the pandemic on those delivering and receiving care.

But having heard evidence during Module 6 of the inquiry, which investigated the impact of the pandemic on adult social care, Rayner said the situation proved much more severe than she had first indicated.

In her closing statement on August 1, she reflected that the social care workforce — and the people it supports — had not been prioritised, adding: “this should never happen again.”

Rayner explained that multiple testimony during Module 6 focused on the “inappropriate lower status” attributed to social care in decision-making, resourcing, political focus and prioritisation.

Addressing Inquiry Chair Baroness Heather Hallett, she said government officials had made “no attempt” to hold strategic discussions or build a formal partnership with the social care sector. This, she argued, led to “multiple missed opportunities to work through the potential implications — and the necessary mitigations — for those receiving and providing care.”

Rayner added that failing to recognise the importance of social care resulted in guidance that was “nigh on impossible to implement, unsuitable for the settings and people it applied to, and issued with timescales that were far too tight.”

The NCF chief executive further noted that the inquiry had exposed a “stark lack of ownership and accountability” among public bodies — both in their understanding of where responsibility lay and in their siloed approach to developing responses to the challenges facing the sector.

Rayner added that, at a local level, responsibility “swung between NHS England and local authorities,” with the needs of the acute hospital system “almost always” taking precedence over those of people living and working in care.

She said this hospital-centric approach — and key decision makers’ “disregard for social care” — had “devastating consequences for the care sector and everyone connected with it.”

Concluding her closing statement, Rayner paid tribute to the “amazing work” of the NCF’s not-for-profit members and their support workers.

“They provide an essential public service and enable people of all ages and all circumstances to live good lives alongside the communities and people they love. The care they provide is the backbone of many communities, families and local economies as well as the wider well-being and population health. We forget that at our peril,” she said.

Addressing Baroness Hallet, she added: “My lady, my final words are to recognise the strength of those witnesses who provided powerful personal testimony to the inquiry. I have been very impacted by their words and one phrase spoken epitomises what I have heard throughout - we all deserve better.”

The COVID-19 inquiry has produced a series of recommendations to safeguard the care sector in the event of a future pandemic.
 

These include:

• Providing step-up training for social care staff to equip them with new skills required during a pandemic.
• Establishing key infection prevention and control measures, such as fit testing, to ensure immediate access to PPE supply chains.
• Enabling rapid, bureaucracy-free funding directly to care providers.
• Ensuring families and essential carers can continue visiting loved ones, with effective IPC measures in place to make this possible.