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Issue 146
Structural Weaknesses Left Social Care “Struggling” with Covid Pandemic Structural weakness, including poor workforce pay, insecure funding and under-investment in data, undermined social care’s ability to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic in a “timely way”, a new report has revealed. Building a resilient social care system in England, published by the Nuffield Trust in conjunction with the London School of Economics, explored how the social care sector responded to the outbreak of Covid-19 in England, identifying areas that would make the sector more resilient in future. The report said that the sector was in a ‘precarious state’ at the point the pandemic hit and Covid-19 further exacerbated its underlying issues.
SYSTEM FRAGMENTED The report examined issues which emerged with the Covid-19 response in the
social care sector in England. Focusing on the initial four months of the pandemic response (February-May 2020), and revealed that the fragmented nature of the system and a shortage of civil servants working on social care contributed to confusion over who was responsible for decisions and implementation in the Covid response, which, for example, undermined the effective distribution of PPE and testing for care staff. Drawing on interviews with sector experts, workshops with social care stakeholders including people who use care, policy documents, and literature, this research has pinpointed areas that could put social care on a more resilient footing in the future.
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