The government’s social care reform plans don’t add up

As Covid-19 swept through care homes in the spring of last year, the public watched on with horror and helplessness. About a third of all Covid deaths in England took place among residents of these homes. It was worse overseas. In Spain, care home residents accounted for 40 per cent of Covid deaths last year. In the Netherlands and Sweden, it was around 50 per cent. In Canada, almost 60 per cent. But this doesn’t provide much comfort. Britain may belong to a large club of countries that got their pandemic policy wrong — but the results, regardless, were deadly.

The huge holes in Britain’s social care system have been exposed. They had been expanding for decades but comprehensive reform was avoided time and time again. In the past year, though, what would normally be deemed politically impossible has been reconsidered. ‘Covid made everything possible,’ one government insider tells me. ‘That includes manifesto overhauls.