Opinion: Sector leaders need to pick their words on Covid with ‘utmost care’

Social care commentator and former public services editor of the Guardian, David Brindle reflects on a controversial moment at the LaingBuisson Social Care Conference, that took place in London on 15 June.  

He said he had been urged to be provocative. And he certainly was.

When Mike Parish gave the opening keynote at LaingBuisson’s recent social care conference, the senior sector figure stunned many in his audience by declaring that after “a terrible start” the government had done “a fantastic job” for social care during the Covid pandemic.

Parish, chair of both leading care home chain Care UK and disability support provider Achieve Together, explained that he thought the sector had survived only thanks to effective government support. “The money came through, we are alive,” he said.

Tweeting later in response to criticism, Parish elaborated: “What I actually said was that after a terrible initial period when sole focus was on hospital capacity and discharging patients without testing, the government supported the sector financially, with PPE, with prioritised testing and vaccination. And so the sector survived.

“It was the most awful time for those that suffered and their families, also for care colleagues who cared whilst putting themselves at risk. But without prioritisation of care home testing many more would have died and without financial support the care sector would have collapsed.”  

Much of this nuance was absent from his initial remarks, however. And the reaction from most of those in the room was clearly not supportive.

Sean Sidhu-Brar, chief executive of St Matthews Healthcare, which supports people with intensive mental health needs, used his platform appearance in the session that followed to take direct issue with him.

“I disagree with Mr Parish, I think the government did a terrible job during the pandemic,” Sidhu-Brar said. Discharge of Covid-positive hospital patients to care homes had been “an unmitigated disaster”.

In a subsequent show of hands, invited by the session chair, only one member of the audience supported Parish.

About 45,000 care home residents in England are thought to have died with Covid. Almost 1,000 social care workers lost their lives to the disease. When the public inquiry into the UK’s preparedness and response to the pandemic finally starts work under its chair, Baroness Heather Hallett, the treatment of care homes will be one of the most contentious issues it addresses.

Parish’s experience shows how sector leaders need to pick their words on the Covid trauma with utmost care lest they risk being misunderstood and cause offence. So very raw are the wounds that it’s hard to envisage a time when that might change.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema