Reading the news really isn’t good for me. I get too angry, and then have to write a rant about it. Lucky you, dear reader.

I read an article about a report MPs have done on adult social care in England. I already know the system is broken but I was curious to see what the MPs had to say about it. They didn’t hold back; you know you’re in real trouble when politicians are using words like ‘woeful’, ‘chronic’ and ‘underfunding’. The Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) quote was predictably weak and said nothing to respond to the concerns raised. This is the part that got me angry – their lacklustre response to this report is indicative of their whole attitude towards this issue. They don’t seem to care, ironically.

Why can’t the UK government get social care and healthcare right or at least on the right track? For me, it is down to two things – breathtaking incompetence and / or lack of political will.

I would really like to understand why the idea of properly run and funded social care and health services is such a seemingly unimportant thing for the government. Surely, we deserve to be well cared for in our time of need? Why is this so tricky politically? Wouldn’t that be a legacy to be proud of? Maybe I’m too French on these things, but I get the feeling that social care is considered as a second class issue. Maybe because it is a difficult issue to think about if you’re not experiencing it directly? Is it correlated with weakness?

I understand the poisonous arguments made by some on people abusing the system and ‘profiting’ from the state, but in its current condition, I don’t think there is much to profit from. Unless you count certain baronesses, who seem to be experts in that area, if press reports are to be believed. And they allegedly made hundreds of thousands or even millions of pounds in profits. The DHSC is also very good at wasting money, writing off a cool 10 billion pounds in unused Personal protective equipment (PPE) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Imagine how many care workers they could have hired for that money, or how many care centres they could have opened.

It is on us to keep the pressure on politicians and to make our priorities clear. I don’t view this as a party political issue either, I don’t care who fixes it. It could be the left, the right, or the aliens-from-Mars party – as long as they do what is in our best interest. Currently, it feels this issue has been so politicised, it prevents (protects?) the government from having to act in a meaningful way; and the whole UK population loses. None of us can see doctors, dentists, or get the kind of medical or social care we deserve, need, and incidentally, pay for.

I almost got to the end of a blog post without mentioning unpaid carers but we are one of the biggest losers in the system, and paradoxically, one the main reasons it hasn’t completely collapsed…yet. We’re the scaffolding that holds the system up and we pay for it with our lives. We’re the scareffolding, if you will.

With an election coming up, it is time for all of us to think long and hard about what we want and who is best placed to make it a reality.