Residential care report shows “current model is unsustainable” says Natalie Bennett

8 March 2016

Green Party leader, Natalie Bennett has said that the evidence is now “overwhelming” for there to be a pilot of different financial models for residential care after a report called for “social innovation in adult care”.

The report by the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) argues that the financialised care home chains are part of the problem because the debt based financing model is not suitable for this kind of low risk, low return activity.

Green Party leader, Natalie Bennett said:

“This is another important report from CRESC that highlights how the privatisation model of public service provision has failed.

“The profit motive is incompatible with provision of the best quality, affordable care, as the outcomes and costs of the US private healthcare system demonstrates.

“As the CRESC report highlights, cash extraction and debt-leveraged buyouts have created an unstable, fragile residential aged care sector – absolutely not what’s needed to provide high-quality, secure care places that will be home for many Britons.

“Further, the report highlights the way in which we as a society need to acknowledge that providing care is a highly skilled, demanding job, which should be paid and recognised accordingly.

“This is incompatible with the current business model, which aims to shovel money into private hands – and often into tax havens.

“As this report highlights, the current model is unsustainable, and costly in both financial and human terms.

“Its call for pilots of different models should be taken seriously by the government, even if it goes against the government’s ideology of privatisation. The evidence is overwhelming.”

ENDS

Notes:

[1] http://www.cresc.ac.uk/publications/

http://www.cresc.ac.uk/medialibrary/research/WDTMG%20FINAL%20-01-3-2016.pdf

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