Labour Party Conference 2024

Hear from Care England’s Policy Officer, Cai Parry, as he provides a wrap-up of each day at Labours 2024 annual conference.

Day 3

The highlight of the day was the speech from Keir Starmer, the first conference speech from a Labour Prime Minister in 15 years. It marked a much-needed shift from the doom and gloom of previous speeches, and showed candour with the public on the difficulties ahead whilst maintaining a tone of optimism for the end of his term in government.

 

There was no specific mention of social care in his speech, although fixing the NHS was one focus, which following the publication of the Darzi report he said would have to necessarily come with fixing social care.

 

Earlier on in the day, conference delegates debated and passed a motion by UNISON on the Future of Local Government, which called for the government to invest in local government and rebuild locally provided services including, amongst other things, social care, which delegates mentioned time and again was at crisis point and desperately needs more funding.

Day 2

Highlights of day 2 of the conference included optimistic speeches from Chancellor Rachel Reeves, ahead of the Oct 30 budget, but also from Ed Miliband, and the Health and Social Care reception in the evening. Below are my notes from the absolutely packed event held by the IPPR and the Health Foundation with Health & Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting.

IPPR & The Health Foundation, with Wes Streeting

The focus of this event was the impact of health and social care on Labour’s manifesto mission for economic growth. Streeting was keen to have the DHSC as a stimulator of economic growth, and not just a public service delivery department. He was keen also to break down siloing with the DWP, and try to increase its public health function too.

 

Prevention is key to his strategy for long-term health, noting that not only is the population ageing, but it is also getting sicker sooner. The idea is to keep people well enough to work, contribute and live well longer. Digitisation was also said to be a big strand of his reform agenda, which will also improve integration between the NHS and Social Care. He was keen to note his openness to work with the private sector to achieve this digitisation.

 

Streeting also reiterated his belief that the solutions to the NHS problems go hand in hand with those for social care, and also his commitment to seeing his social care role has parity with his responsibility for the NHS: “I’m look forward to when I take interviews where they shorthand my title to Social Care Secretary rather than the Health Secretary”

 

He went on to outline his priorities for the sector: “In this Parliament, I think the ambitions have got to be to stabilise the sector and make sure it is more able to work with the NHS in a more integrated way, to deal with the delayed discharge problems in our hospitals and be there for people when they need it, but actually of the course of the next decade create a National Care Service that works for disabled people with conditions that would have previously been fatal, and older people too.” “The way we do that is by giving people support, independence and dignity.

 

Streeting reiterated his openness to work with the Conservatives, Lib Dems and Reform UK on the issue of social care, where he feels there is common ground with Labour. He continues to think about the best way of working cross-party on this, likening the consensus for fixing social care and forming a National Care Service to the struggle to agree with stakeholders and other parties on a consensus for building the NHS in the ‘40s. “We need to give the chance for all of our political parties to clean up the mess that all of us have created.”

 

Finally, he praised Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey on his raising the profile of social care during the election campaign, describing his interview on his experiences of social care as “the best piece of political communications during the campaign.”

 

In response to a question on the scrapping of the social care charging reforms, Streeting said that the Conservative government had not only not costed and funded them, but also not made the operational preparations to be ready for the Oct 2025 deadline, leaving them no choice but to make the unpopular decision. He has said that charging reforms will have to be considered again at a later date alongside other sector reforms.

Day 1

Having arrived yesterday, I spent the morning chatting to elected members of local authorities in the Association of Labour Councillors lounge. Funding pressures were a common theme throughout, and they are looking forward to the government’s new multi-year funding settlements that will allow longer-term planning on services, hopefully giving providers more certainty.

Fabian Wes Streeting interview

The Fabian Society chair, Andy Harrop, interviewed Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting at their event, jointly hosted by UNISON. Streeting acknowledged the crisis in care. He noted cost to the user, integration and quality as issues. He said that following the publication of the Darzi report, fixing social care is a must for fixing the NHS and that “one can’t succeed without the other”. He also put forward the positive vision of a care system that is there when it’s needed, saying that “social care system does not meet that ambition today”, rather than simply advocating for fixing the system because it is currently at crisis point.

 

He said he was looking forward to starting a big shift of health spending from hospitals to social care, primary care and mental health, as recommended in the Darzi report.

 

Streeting said the next steps following the Darzi report would be to start a “national conversation” – in other words co-developing policy with those who have first hand experience. When probed on a new Royal Commission, Streeting said “we are happy to work with other parties constructively on reform, but we’re thinking about the best mechanism to get them involved.”

 

Wes also addressed the failings of the CQC’s assessments and inspections in his interview: “I’d only been in the department for three weeks when I found out the CQC have basically been making reports up and assessment ratings from partial accounts. I found that absolutely jaw-droppingly shocking.” I also had the opportunity to briefly raise the issue of delayed CQC registrations with him the previous evening (pictured).

 

He was finally asked about his views on where things will be at the end of the first term of a Labour government. He said his goals were to make the workforce feel respected, and for social care to not just be a job but a profession. He noted the title of “junior doctor”, his experiences of nurses being called by their pay bands rather than their names, shift rotas, travel time and overnight pay. He also emphasised that although he has 10-year, two-term plans, the perception in 5 years must be that progress will have been made. 1 term is not enough to fix social care or the NHS.

 

Streeting ended by saying “People should feel like for the first time, we’ve really put social care on the agenda.”

Rally for Care

At the Rally for Care, organised by the Future Social Care Coalition, we heard from Stephen Kinnock (Minister for Care), Wes Streeting, Liz Kendall (Work and Pensions Secretary), Phil Hope (Minister for Care, 2008-10), Dan Francis (MP for Bexleyheath & Crayford) and Cllr Richard Howitt (Former MEP & Chair of Cambridgeshire County Council’s Adult Social Care Committee)

 

Kinnock talked about how the Better Care Fund needs reviewing on how it’s being spent. Hope then suggested that attendees should make suggestions to ministers on this, and that ministers want to hear what should be done first, not just what needs to be done.

 

Streeting outlined what his first steps for reforming social care should be, namely a workforce and better national standards.

 

Dan Francis shared a personal story on his experiences of being an unpaid carer for his daughter whilst being an advocate for better funding for the sector as a councillor in Bexley.