The House of Lords adult social care committee has announced plans to investigate ‘the invisibility of adult social care’.
The committee has invited the public to submit its views as to why ‘both the people who draw on care and support and their carers are largely invisible’. Its aim is to ‘consider how that entrenched invisibility … impacts on the lives of people who draw on care and support and the lives of the people who enable them and care for them. It will explore what needs to change to create a fair, resilient and sustainable care system that better enables everyone to “live an ordinary life”, and in doing so, gives individuals choice and control over their lives.’
The chair of the committee, Baroness Andrews, said: “While people understand by experience what the health service does, very few people understand what adult social care is, how it works and why it matters, until they themselves or their friends and families are directly affected.
“This relative ‘invisibility’ means that it can be difficult to bring about positive change on the ground, not least because so much is so far from sight.
“The nature of invisibility, for example, describes not only the enormous diversity and different challenges faced by those who draw on social care, but also the experience of the many millions of family members and friends across the country who support their loved ones -young and old - to live their lives, often providing more care and support than formal services.
“In launching this inquiry, our main purpose is to understand and recognise how these barriers of invisibility can be dismantled and how both those who receive different types of support and care at different ages can meet their aspirations for a full life, as well as their families and friends who care for them.
“By listening and learning from those who will share their experience and knowledge with us, we also seek to reflect on what the meaning of social care should be and ask how far the system remains from realising that meaning in the everyday lives of people who draw on care and of their families. In doing so, we can challenge the assumption that unpaid care is always an option and anticipate the need for new forms of care and support.”
