Giving her first assessment of the problems since the commission started work last year, Casey described social care in England as “a system which means some needs are barely met at all, and others are met late and in piecemeal and random ways”.
She also pointed to a total reliance nationally on underpaying care workers and an imbalance in power between the NHS and council-run social care, which she says ends up serving the institutions not people.
“This divide between what is care and what is health does not exist to the public. It is our divide. It is not about what is best for the patient or the person.
“Put simply, social care does not start and end with a social worker doing an assessment, or you ending up in a care home,” she said.
In her speech, she described two NHS hospital trusts that tried to set up their own care services but discovered they could not make it “stack up” financially because anyone working in the NHS is better paid, and has better terms and conditions, than care staff.
“We all know, including councils and the NHS, that we exploit the weakness of the care workforce,” she told the audience of health and social care professionals in Windsor.
Care workers often earn less than the minimum wage and are often not paid for travel or holidays.
