This is obviously serious

Letter to Govt from Directors of Adult Social Services' concerns reflect what has been visible for some time

Govt not engaging effectively with those responsible for Social Care locally with damaging consequences
1/5 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52304918

Damaging consequences are

1) Distribution of PPE to Care Homes has been paltry, haphazard and shambolic

2)Lack of planning around testing

3)750,000 volunteers recruited w/o consultation and left with nothing to do for 3 weeks

2/5

Root of problem is Govt has acted centrally through NHS and given little thought to local delivery of services outside hospital

Which reflects lack of planning and desire to be seen to act

- but without clear strategic purpose effectively communicated

3/5

The evidence of that failure can be seen in way deaths in hospital are reported daily but in Social Care are not

And in how hospital capacity has been freed up by discharging people into care homes without tests with the consequences of avoidable deaths now being reported

4/5

Ultimately all this is consequence of two things

1)Way Govt acts centrally .Has neglected Local Govt for 10 years

2)That Govt followed a flawed 'Controlled Spread' Mitigation Strategy and lost control of events. Has been coming from behind ever since

Time to change now

5/5

And here's a reminder of one Minister's contribution to planning our way forward https://twitter.com/brucemcd23/status/1250552629484236805?s=20

And yesterday we had Care Minister Helen Whately not knowing basic facts about what was happening

Not to mention Matt Hancock who under pressure says the right things

But evidence of delivery is sketchy at best https://twitter.com/brucemcd23/status/1250366820692963328?s=20