Amid the harrowing stories of lives lost and cruelty beyond belief in other operators’ homes, directors of the company have been busy making mega fortunes out of the elderly. But, as Kailash Chand shows on pages 12-13, this is just the tip of an iceberg which is the steady collapse over decades of the entire care system in England. Excellent care homes and services appear to be the minority amid a system in which shocking neglect passes as normal in a service unsuited to be entrusted to the profit-driven private sector.
Private equity firms such as that which “bundled” Southern Cross are notorious for the ruthless way in which they asset strip, pile on debt and sell off companies for massive profits leaving behind a dysfunctional, under-funded shell.
It is a governmental dereliction of duty that they should be allowed to run “care” services when their primary care is the size of profits.
As Unison’s Dave Prentis observes on page 7, this should be a warning for what is to come if the main planks of the National Health Service reforms are pushed through. The Prime Minister has adopted his most soothing bedside manner to assure the country that the Government’s plans for the NHS will not do all those things that are set out in the very Bill currently before Parliament. David Cameron’s apparent retreat is said to be a victory for Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats – the same Nick Clegg and Lib Dems who signed up to the original proposals in the first place. If there is, in fact, any victory to be had it goes to the voters who gave the Lib Dems such a drubbing at the last election.
And if there is one common denominator between Southern Cross, the NHS reform bill and the coalition it is that they are all in tatters. Where is that “man with a plan” now? That David Cameron who skitted into Downing Street with ready-made radical reforms for education, health, the welfare state and the police; all ripped to shreds in the face of public and professional hostility and their own inherent contradictions.
Labour’s abstention on the second reading of the welfare reform bill – which carries ominous consequences for local government finance, childcare and housing – was a craven genuflection to the Daily Mail and its cohort of scrounger scarers. A more robust opposition will be needed when the reality becomes more graphic during examination at committee stage.
Opposition which, to judge by Business Secretary Vince Cable, is about to explode in mass strikes by the trade union movement. Liberals have always shown disdain for organised Labour. That’s what makes them Liberal Democrats.
It was never going to be long before they and their union-hating partners launched a pre-emptive strike on the unions who are in the front line against capitalism’s harshest features. If the coalition seeks to stifle the right to strike, it may get what Mr Cable fears.
