Category: Social care

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Somerset cuts and the cost of care: a story of defunding and privatisation that is replicated right across the country

Mick Fletcher

In 2021, I wrote about the dangerous dowry left to the new Somerset unitary authority by the previous Conservative council. The combination of an unwanted reorganisation and a systematic failure to invest in local services had left Somerset especially vulnerable to financial crisis. The warning of trouble ahead was all too correct. In November 2023, […]

What it’s actually like to be me

Joe Hardy

This piece is probably going to be long and heavy because I’m going to detail exactly what it’s actually like to be me and all the things that I am reliant on others for that might not be particularly obvious from just reading my tweets. Here we go. I was born almost three months early […]

Why doesn’t our government care about people? Letter to the editor

Editor-in-chief

Dear West Country Voices, I think I distantly remember a time when governments cared for their people, nurtured them, assisted them, spent our money neutralising the corrosive causes of poverty and criminality. I get the sense that the ‘nouvelle vague‘ of the ultra-right wing is using us like lab rats in an experiment. Shrink the […]

Just a few days in Tory… Eyes on the lies, everyone!

Russ In Cheshire

Russ Jones has done it again. Expect updates! 1. Our new PM, Margarine Thatcher, said she was “absolutely committed” to cutting tax for the rich 2. Then she cancelled tax cuts the rich 3. Truss boasted she was prepared to make unpopular decisions 4. But her decisions were unpopular, so she cancelled them 5. Truss […]

Children’s services should protect children not profit

WeOwnIt

Our children’s services are there to protect and care for vulnerable children in our communities, providing a lifeline for those in difficult situations. But doesn’t it seem wrong that private companies are able to run these services and prioritise profit over the children they are meant to protect? The government recently dropped its unpopular plans to reduce council responsibilities […]

Children in care: big business for international investors

Martin Barrow

Editor: This is the first in a series of articles about the privatisation/monetisation of a number of aspects of social and health care. For every pound that was once spent directly on providing a service and those being cared for by that service, a chunk will now go to shareholders. With a profit motive driving […]

Integrated Care Systems (ICS) are here. What do they mean for you?

WeOwnIt

The NHS is being reorganised again, and if you’re like most people you’ll have questions. So what’s happening? Campaign group We Own It have given us permission to reproduce their guide to Integrated Care Systems (ICS). In an upcoming article, we’ll talk about what’s going on in the south west, with information from Save Our Hospital […]

Trying to do more with less: austerity lives on in Devon

Julian Andrews
elderly woman in window looking out

As government continues to shift the burden for services (and the blame for their shortcomings) onto councils, whilst cutting their budgets, Julian Andrews explains the impact on Devon’s budget and inhabitants. “The age of irresponsibility is giving way to the age of austerity”, said David Cameron in 2009. Shortly afterwards, then-Chancellor George Osborne announced cuts […]

Who’s going to look after Granny? The crisis in social care

Anna Andrews
profile of older woman, cold and alone

I’m sorry to distract you from the kerfuffle over Downing St Christmas parties, and who paid for the redecoration of Boris Johnson’s flat etc, but there is something else which should concern us all. There is a massive crisis in social care in this country. We should all be aware of the possible implications for […]

Social care: another Conservative manifesto pledge broken

Sadie Parker

Social care may well prove to be Alexander Boris de Pfeffel’s Johnson’s Waterloo, and deservedly so. Out of the blue, less than a week before parliament was to vote on the matter, Number 10 tabled a new proposal (New Clause 49 to the Health and Care Bill) on the social care cap. It significantly watered […]

Marcus Fysh talking codswallop. Part 2

Anthea Simmons

MP for Yeovil Marcus Fysh is on fire at the moment. He’s become an expert epidemiologist and virologist in the space of a few days and now he is acting like a business development exec for private healthcare insurance companies. At first it seemed as though he and Newton Abbot MP Anne Marie Morris were […]

A plan that wasn’t a plan and a promise that wasn’t a promise

Mick Fletcher

If you are thinking of laying bets on winners and losers in the next reshuffle James Heappey, MP for Wells, may be one to watch.  He is desperately loyal, not associated too closely with a current scandal, and, unlike some of his colleagues, can speak his lines clearly.  Most importantly, he can repeat official nonsense […]

Black mums don’t matter

Anna Andrews

“I kept saying ‘I’m in pain, I’m in pain’, but I was completely dismissed and fobbed off – no one looked at me,” says Tinuke Awe, “I was just left feeling like I didn’t matter, that no one really cared about me.”  In Britain, black women are almost five times more likely than white women to […]

Listen to our debate on the future of the NHS and healthcare

Anthea Simmons

On 24 March, WCB ran the second of a series of Zoom Q&A events on hot political and socio-economic topics. In the wake of the publication of the Government’s white paper on the future of health and social care, the sale of GP practices to a US healthcare provider, privatisation of test and trace, the […]

The truth behind Government’s healthcare ‘reforms’

Rosie Haworth Booth

Have you heard about the new health and social care ‘reforms’? The reforms which are restructuring the administration of care across the country, and which claim to overturn the worst aspects of those set up by Andrew Lansley in 2012? Are you glad to hear that these new structures, known as Integrated Care Systems, or […]

Debunking Covid-19 myths: part 3 – taking a look at vaccines

Emma Monk

Much of the misinformation and confusion surrounding Covid-19 relates to whether the vaccines are safe and effective. It is completely understandable to have questions, and no-one should be dismissed for wanting to find the best information out there. I will do my best, using all the available evidence, to cover some of the questions I’ve […]

Misinformation costs lives, David Warburton. Spread facts, not fiction

Emma Monk

On 8 January, MP for Somerton and Frome David Warburton gave an interview to the Somerset County Gazette containing a great deal of misinformation. Short of a small link to a fact-checking website in the middle of the article, his views were printed uncontested. Is it right for an MP to be given a platform […]

Teignmouth Hospital: the trail of failure and betrayal just got longer

Editor-in-chief

Scrutiny – not a word that this government either likes or, being charitable, understands. Scrutiny. It’s essential for a healthy society. It is essential if citizens are to have any trust in their public servants and institutions. Scrutiny, trust and truth have all been damaged in the course of the past few years and their […]

100,000 dead. “We truly did everything we could”. REALLY?

Femi Oluwole

With 100,000 Covid deaths, Journalists better mention that Boris Johnson: Feb 2020 Said he wanted UK to have the loosest reaction to Coronavirus. Skipped 5 Cobra Meetings. March 2020 Told people to shake hands Allowed mass crowds May 2020 Denied the Stay Home order existed to save Cummings Seriously!? This was a #DowningStreetBriefing SPECIFICALLY on […]

The Covid-19 herd immunity scandal: you need to know

Fionna O'Leary

You might want to look at this Sunday Times article @ChrChristensen @chrischirp . TENGELL, Sweden’s COVID lead, with GUPTA and HENEGHAN, U.K. herd immunity fans, met secretly with Boris Johnson & Rishi Sunak (U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer) at Sunak’s request) on 20th Sept. 20th Sept is highly material as it was the day before […]