“The failure is with our centralised, under-resourced and bureaucratised systems that did not prepare properly for a pandemic and don’t have the flexibility to respond to the Covid-19 crisis as a crisis – a system that keeps the people responsible for regulation distanced from what they are supposed to be regulating.”
Care homes
“A bottom up review of the care home system would enable the workforce to help re-design a system that depends on them.”
Nick Kempe: The Scottish Government should put older people, their families and care staff at the heart of the care system
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman is set to take questions today from MSPs on the care homes crisis, the eye of the Covid-19 storm in Scotland. Yesterday’s weekly National Records of Scotland statistics revealed that there are now more deaths in care homes than the rest of Scotland combined, a tragic outcome three months into a […]
Care Homes crisis: 4 questions for the Health Secretary
“The immediate need is that the Scottish Government learns from mistakes that have probably cost hundreds of lives. This is not an argument that the Scottish Government has done better or worse than other governments, but simply that they need to be open about what has gone wrong, consult and act.”
Nick Kempe: Isolation, human rights and keeping older people safe in care homes
“Accepting Jeanne Freeman at her word, why didn’t she realise what anyone working at the coalface in the sector could have told her – that discharging any infected person from hospital to a care home could have disastrous consequences?”
Nick Kempe: Scottish Government response to care home crisis proves why older people need a voice
“The ongoing pandemic has made certain questions unavoidable. What right to care does a citizen enjoy, and what role should the state take in securing those rights?”
Problems facing Scotland’s care homes will outlast Covid-19 unless major change is made
Common Weal today publishes a very important report on the Care Homes crisis written by Nick Kempe, former Head of Service for Older People in Glasgow. The report can be read here, and is worth taking the time to go through carefully. A full analysis will appear on Source later. Here, I will only focus on one aspect […]
We need to talk about democratic accountability in public services
The more one finds out about Home Farm care home in Portree, Skye, the more clear it is that something fundamental is wrong, not just here, but in the way care homes are run in this country generally. The Care Inspectorate have now submitted an application to cancel the care home’s registration, run by private […]
Home Farm, and why the failures in care homes run deep
María Branyas is a name that may become synonymous with resilience. 113-years-old, she has survived the Spanish Flu of 1918-19, the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39 and the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020. Branyas was in isolation for weeks after contracting Covid-19 in the care home she has lived in for two decades in the city […]
Remember the care home survivors
“Today we have one simple call: for politicians across Britain to act now to end carers’ poverty. Carers must be given the same level of support and respect they give to others; both now and for good.” – Jamie Livingstone, Head of Oxfam Scotland