What's the best way to end the neglect of our care homes?

Politicians have dodged dealing with a growing crisis in social care for decades. The problem cannot be put off any longer. But what is the best way forward?

Care worker and patient © Karwai Tang/Getty Images
The sheer scale of the tragedy in our care homes may crystalise political will © Getty
(Image credit: Care worker and patient © Karwai Tang/Getty Images)

Why have care homes been so badly hit?

It is partly due to the nature of Covid-19 and the vulnerability of aged residents, and partly due to policy failures by the government. But it is also, argues The Economist, a reflection of the sector’s chronic status as the unloved poor relation of the NHS. There are roughly 11,300 care homes in Britain that look after the elderly, with some 410,000 residents, as of April. But while the government poured resources into the NHS in the early stages of the pandemic, care homes “are mostly small private businesses and have been left to deal with the crisis themselves”. This on top of years of neglect – and more than two decades of politicians refusing to face up to a growing funding crisis.

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Simon Wilson’s first career was in book publishing, as an economics editor at Routledge, and as a publisher of non-fiction at Random House, specialising in popular business and management books. While there, he published Customers.com, a bestselling classic of the early days of e-commerce, and The Money or Your Life: Reuniting Work and Joy, an inspirational book that helped inspire its publisher towards a post-corporate, portfolio life.   

Since 2001, he has been a writer for MoneyWeek, a financial copywriter, and a long-time contributing editor at The Week. Simon also works as an actor and corporate trainer; current and past clients include investment banks, the Bank of England, the UK government, several Magic Circle law firms and all of the Big Four accountancy firms. He has a degree in languages (German and Spanish) and social and political sciences from the University of Cambridge.