North Yorkshire care home boss welcomes chance to shape social care reform
Mike Padgham has been reacting to Government's trailblazer pilot scheme
A social care pilot scheme in North Yorkshire that will benefit residents has moved a step closer.
It is as the Government's charging reform programme was unanimously supported earlier this week at the County Council.
It will see the total cost of care for recipients capped at £86,000 introduced from January next year - nine months ahead of elsewhere.
Mike Padgham, Chair of North Yorkshire's Independent Care Group and owner of Saint Cecilia's care homes in Scarborough, said: "I'm pleased in a way that we've got a chance in North Yorkshire to shape the future direction of this reform because I think it's important. I don't believe the reform has been fully thought through yet and it needs to be costed and funded correctly, so I'm glad that we're going to be at the centre to be able to influence that.
"It's a shared challenging problem for us to solve and I think together with the Council, users of the service and ourselves to come up with some solutions. The key thing for this, in my view, is the councils across the country, North Yorkshire in particular, have to be fully funded for these changes because there isn't sufficient money in the system so that should be one of the learning points from this to the Government.
"This is the first attempt to try and do something. It's not perfect. It's only start of the process and a very small beginning. More needs to be done but at least it's a start and I hope again that North Yorkshire has great people in it with a lot of experience in social care, local authority included, will be able influence the Government in the right way.
"We want to give more certainty to people that need care in terms of the amount of money it's going to cost, certainly for local authorities in terms of their funding. But more importantly, I want to see a fair wage given to social care staff in the frontline so they're on par with the NHS. That should be the biggest questions for us to solve and I hope this is a step in the right direction for that."