Labour leader Ed Miliband has warned of a ‘mounting crisis’ in the social care system and called for cross-party talks on the sector in the wake of the Southern Cross homes crisis.
He has also added his voice to concerns that the government might have to bail out the nation’s biggest private care homes operator.Speaking yesterday, Miliband said that social care reform demanded ‘urgent attention’ following the financial difficulties at Southern Cross and revelations about alleged serious abuse at the Winterborne View care home near Bristol.
The Labour leader offered Prime Minister David Cameron cross-party talks on the recommendations of the Dilnot Commission on social care funding, due to report next month.
Arguing that ‘every serious attempt to solve this pressing challenge has foundered’ on the failure to find a political consensus, Miliband said: ‘We will come to those talks with an open mind about the best way forward, not simply advocating what we have proposed in the past. But the principles are clear – high quality care for those that need it, funded in a fair way, with properly accountability for those who deliver the care
His views on Southern Cross echo those of commentators such as Peter Beresford, the professor of social policy at Brunel University and a member of the external reference group of the Dilnot Commission. Last week, Beresfordtold Public Finance that in his view ‘government will have to find some sort of way, whatever it is, to bail Southern Cross out’.
The care home group, which operates 750 care homes with 31,000 residents, has announced that it will defer paying part of its rents until October due to its ‘critical’ financial position.
Miliband said that health and social care was one of the industries – like banking – where ‘corporate failure can have consequences far beyond the loss to shareholders and investors’.
He added: ‘Just as with the banks, in the end the government would have to step in and pick up the tab.’
He added that it was ‘plain wrong’ that private equity firms had profited from the rise of Southern Cross through selling and then leasing back the properties it owned, while elderly residents had been ‘treated merely as commodities’.
The government should also examine whether regulation by the Care Quality Commission should be extended to cover a care home’s finances, he said.
