Category: Blogs

“In England, justice is open to all – like The Ritz.”  So quipped judge Sir James Matthew at the turn of the 20th century.  The sad reality is that justice and the law, as Sir James was highlighting a century ago, is all too often only really open to those with the financial means to […]

In December 2022, a third of all new cars sold in the UK were electric vehicles (EVs) – a staggering increase from just three years earlier when the equivalent figure was less than 2%.  The reasons for this are pretty obvious:  the unprecedented fuel price increases triggered by the tragic Ukraine conflict have tipped the […]

Last month, I made the case for the social care sector to up its game on sustainability.  To which one reader – fairly, if a little assertively! – challenged me to say what the sector actually needed to do!  So, here’s my starting suggestion. Research published in 2021 by the National Housing Federation highlighted that […]

As I write this, the first of my regular columns on sustainability in the social care sector, world leaders (well, most of them…) are convening at Sharm el-Sheikh for the COP27 meeting on climate change.  United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres bluntly warned delegates that “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot […]

According to the World Health Organisation, one in four people around the world will suffer with a mental health condition in their lifetime.  I would venture that pretty much all of us have suffered a period of mental health difficulties.  Thankfully, public discourse around mental health issues is far more open than it was.  There […]

When I talk to people outside of the social care system, they are amazed when I tell them that the social care workforce accounts for 5% of the country’s entire workforce, twice the size of the agricultural sector. Thankfully, whilst we may not yet have a Social Care Today to replace Farming Today on Radio […]

I shifted my career to the charity sector after I saw just how immediate and powerful the impact could be on individuals’ lives at times of crisis from a timely intervention by a well-run and thoughtful organisation. This is particularly the case in the social care sector in which I have witnessed amazing people providing […]

This week is national care leavers week in the UK, where we celebrate the achievements and good stories of care leavers. Unfortunately, with every great care leaver success story, there are multiple other tragic cases of care leavers ending up in dire circumstances, whether it be homelessness, unemployment or untimely deaths. We, as a society, […]

At the time of writing, the very public debate about the scale and means of social care funding is reaching a fever pitch. Whatever and whenever the outcome of this political wrangling, there is one cast-iron certainty: additional funding will be subject to major reforms to the way in which social care is organised and […]

Social care does not operate in a vacuum but is a vital component of our wider society to which we must always have regard. Entering care can be overwhelming and frightening and it is up to care workers and the care sector as a whole to make sure that the integration process for these individuals […]