Social care in crisis - but will the government listen?

The Scottish Parliament is winding down for the year. MSPs and political staff will not be back in Holyrood until the new year.

And yet, The Herald has chosen to launch an investigation into the state of social care in Scotland, a system often described as being in “crisis”.

The three-day series – Social Care in Crisis – revealed stark, but important, warnings about the future of the system. It features interviews from leading industry experts, Scottish ministers and the people who rely on the service.

Crucially, it gives a voice to unpaid carers, a group who often feel left behind by the wider care system, but still pick up the pieces when the service fails to meet the need.

The warnings around social care are not new but they are increasing with a new intensity. More than 200 organisations warned the Scottish Government that the sector was at “breaking point” earlier this year.

Scotland has a rapidly ageing population, with 20.5% of people aged 65 and over by mid-2024, an increase of 16% in the two decades since mid-2004.

Around 16.2% of the population were 15 or younger in the same time period, down 18.4%.

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That means more people will inevitably rely on the social care system – but can it handle the growing demand? Care homes are already closing amid funding and staffing problems.

Experts say that without urgent reform it simply cannot cope. So how do we futureproof a system that is already struggling? That is what The Herald’s investigation aims to find out.

The term crisis is one that is often thrown around or overused without a second thought. It is a term that we were determined not to use lightly.

And yet the series is clear. This is a system in urgent need of reform.

We took the step to describe it as a crisis based on informed discussions with service users, carers, social workers and third sector organisations.

“It’s a system really in crisis and in need of reform,” warned Sara Cowan, director of the Scottish Women’s Budget Group, who complied Scotland’s first ever social care Scorecard.

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The results of the report, she said, were stark. Social care in Scotland is chronically “undervalued” with staff feeling “unsupported” and “taken for granted”.

Jamie Livingstone, head of Oxfam Scotland, said people were being "left waiting, juggling and often barely coping".

The report found failings in every part of the social care system: from adult social care, child services, unpaid care, with policies described as good on paper but “patchy” when put into practice.

Most of us, at various stages in our lives, will rely on the social care system. Many of us will know someone who works in social care, or who has family members living in a home or residential care.

Charities and third sector organisations continuously warn of a hierarchy in care, where the vast majority of funding goes into the NHS to alleviate the pressures in the health service.

Meanwhile, they say social care is left behind, undervalued and underfunded.

But without focusing and supporting social care, the workers and the people who rely on the lifeline services, the NHS could not cope.

For the people who work in care – or rely on the lifeline services – there is no break. Care is continuous, all year round. They will set out how the system should be fixed and it is for our government ministers to take responsibility and listen.