Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Letters: Market in care can't provide security (Guardian)

It is both remarkable and disturbing that we need to be reassured that
vulnerable and elderly people will not "end up on the streets" (Southern Cross
seeks lifeline from No 10, 13 April). There was no need for such reassurances
from the advent of the National Assistance Act 1948 and the abolition of
workhouses until the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990
facilitated the privatisation of care services. What the Southern Cross
debacle reveals is that government has not been able to create mechanisms
which enable the market to replicate the security of state provision.

It is notable that Southern Cross was at the heart of a House of Lords
decision, YL v Birmingham City Council [2007] UKHL 27 [2008] 1 AC 95, that
resulted in parliament extending the Human Rights Act 1998 to the publicly
funded residents of private care homes. Yet the Human Rights Act, despite all
its aspirations to protect the dignity of the individual, provides no
protection from the destructive greed of profit-seekers who understand social
care as an income stream rather than a public good. Until regulatory devices
can be developed which ensure that service provision is sustainable ...
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