John Macgill

As we imagine a so-called ‘new normal’ after covid-19, it is becoming clear that things cannot return to how they were for some sectors and professions.

The lessons we have learnt from the pandemic justify a fundamental rethink of our attitude to two groups in particular: carers and politicians.

In recent weeks it has become standard practice for politicians and commentators, finally, to group health and care workers together as they pay tribute to those on the front line. But it has been a struggle for the care sector to get to the recognition it has now.

The independent and charity care sector was invisible. Its representatives were not invited to the table when pandemic planning was being done a few years ago. Even though it was known from day one that this coronavirus posed its greatest risk to the oldest in our society, carers – be they in care homes, providing care at home services or members of the army of three quarters of a million unpaid carers – had to wait far longer than their health service colleagues for answers and resources.

During February, I acted as the moderator, on behalf of healthandcare.scot, for four roundtable meetings to allow representatives of some of the members of Scottish Care to discuss the questions being posed by the Scottish Parliament’s health committee as part of its inquiry into the future of social care in Scotland.

What I felt was clear from listening to those around the table was that the care sector, then operating in ‘normal circumstances’ had neither the resources nor the support it needed to be resilient. The picture that was drawn by independent and third sector providers, from the Highlands to Dumfries & Galloway, was of a precarious existence, sometimes vulnerable to the choices of health and social care partnership decision-makers who didn’t respect them, and almost always of people living with the constant disappointment of not having the resources they wanted to really enrich the lives of the people they cared for in homes or to pack all they wanted to into the short time they were allowed with people in their own homes.

On this foundation of sand, the pandemic has meant care at home providers have often had to cut back, rather than being able to increase, their support. Meanwhile an almost inevitable tragedy has unfolded within individual care homes where the coronavirus has spread like wildfire, bringing to an end extraordinary lives and consigning families and staff to a life of constant worry.

There is, of course, another side to this story. As of today, 486 care homes in Scotland have an active confirmed or suspected care of covid-19. That means 594 do not.

This achievement of keeping thousands of older and vulnerable people safe from coronavirus is little short of a miracle and has involved a Herculean task for care home managers and teams, of creating a protective barrier around the people in their care. This has come at significant cost: team members often making the decision to live inside the protective cordon that they have created, hardly seeing their own families from week to week.

It is right we clap for those of the front line across health and social care. And that message of support needs to be heard by those politicians whose attitude to social care has been ambivalent in the past.

Social care is a tough political issue. Getting social care right requires tough decisions about systems, attitudes – and ultimately how income from taxes is prioritised.

The coronavirus pandemic has reminded us that politicians make life and death decisions. It seems this is a burden that few in high office were prepared for. As an electorate, because none of us could have imagined what lay ahead, we perhaps did not set the bar high enough.

The ‘new normal’ needs to include a change in the mindset around elections so that none of us go into the polling station unclear of where political parties stand on any key issue such as how we care for older people. In the light of the covid-19 pandemic, surely it can no longer be acceptable for a political party and its candidates to seek election without a coherent a policy on social care?

We, as an electorate, can never again accept an election campaign run as a media popularity contest where leaders can opt out of direct, painful scrutiny by the likes of Andrew Neil, hiding instead behind a single slogan or chant.

This pandemic has shown that some politicians have the intellect, experience, compassion and drive to serve that has been needed to reduce the impact of a national crisis. It has also led us to believe that others do not.

And the challenges for parliamentarians have only just begun.

One of the biggest risks from the economic catastrophe, that has accompanied the human tragedy of the covid-19 pandemic, is that governments will simply not have enough money to support services, even to match the levels we saw at the beginning of this year.

The tough decisions ahead for politicians will include the choice of whether to claw back overspent and borrowed money by spending less on the NHS and social care.

Such a move would be catastrophic for health services and care providers already beaten down, and now exhausted, by the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic – their physical, emotional and financial resources at rock bottom.

As a society, I think we have always held carers in high esteem. But too quietly. Those who are carers, of all ages and in every setting, have got used to being overlooked. If anyone was in any doubt before about the central role played by those who provide care, they surely cannot be now. Carers have earned a place of honour, and that status should remain permanent after the current crisis is over.

Our regard for our political leaders will depend not just on how we judge them to have led us through this crisis, but also what they do next.