At the end of last week’s full council meeting, a quarterly debate was held on the subject of funding social care.
I opted not to cover the debate because although Bridgend Council is responsible for providing a large number of care services, the Welsh Government control most of the purse strings and sets overall policy. Like it or not, I’m not really covering the Senedd that much anymore.
Comments from Cllr. Pam Davies (Lab, Bryntirion, Laleston & Merthyr Mawr) at the very end of the debate have since been flagged up by others so I decided to go back to it. You can watch for yourself here; it starts around 2:27:36.
In summary, Cllr. Davies said:
- We need a huge plaster to repair what’s happened in previous years and there’s room to make savings within the NHS which could be redirected towards care services and care workers.
- Working in care “is not a nice job”; nobody wants to “wipe someone’s backside or pick their vomit up and worse”. Care is short-staffed and sickness levels are high – and who can blame them?
- The Agenda for Change review (a review of pay and working conditions for non-medical staff in the NHS) in the 2000s resulted in nursing assistants being handed “the menial jobs that nurses wouldn’t do” at the lowest pay bands. People doing those jobs need to be at the table when there are reviews of the NHS and care.
- The whole system is wrong and Cllr. Davies claimed that medical reps were going into GP offices trying to “bribe” doctors with free equipment or cash to put patients on certain medication trials and also funding graduation parties for medical students. All that money could be spent on care.
That’s some strong stuff for a council meeting, and the Mayor, Cllr. John Spanswick (Lab, Brackla), said such allegations “were not for here”. It probably wasn’t wise to say any of that without hard evidence to hand either.
Some may take exception to it, considering it to be an attack on key workers when we’ve spent the last 18 months praising them to the hilt for their work during the pandemic.
Others may even agree with at least some of what Cllr. Davies said, seeing as the NHS and social care system has been gradually more commercialised. Despite seemingly ever-increasing budgets and constant reviews, service quality seems to always struggle.
As for my views, there’s probably some truth in what Cllr. Davies said – not the GP/medical rep comments (which I don’t think are relevant here and I can understand why some would be offended by them), but everything else.
Politicians and the rest of us all too often boil the NHS and care system down to “doctorsandnurses” because they get the roles that most of us as members of the public see.
Behind them, there’s an entire unsung army of highly skilled, dedicated workers who don’t get the VIP treatment: nursing assistants, care assistants, paramedics, scientists, radiographers and diagnostics staff, physiotherapists, pharmacists, IT staff, porters, maintenance staff and administrators like receptionists and clinical coders – as well as many others.
Without them, the whole health and care system would collapse as the unglamorous jobs wouldn’t get done. They perhaps haven’t got their due because they don’t have a powerful BMA or RCN to lobby for them and their work can’t be commercialised as much.
What do you think? Did Pam Davies have a point? Or was it nothing more than a pointed rant?
