The period before any election provides us all with an opportunity to pause and to take stock, and to decide what matters to us both as individuals and as a society.
For too long, adult social care has been spoken about in the language of cost, burden, and crisis. Yet anyone who has walked the hallways of a care home at dawn, listened to the quiet courage of unpaid carers, or stood beside frontline staff carrying hope into other people’s lives knows a different truth.
Today marks the beginning of Care Creates which is a campaign born from a deep belief that social care in Scotland is not merely a service, nor an adjunct to the NHS, nor a set of transactions between institutions and individuals. Rather social care is a profoundly human endeavour. It is creativity in action. It is community made visible.
And at the heart of this campaign, at the heart of care itself, sits one constant: human rights.
Right at the start of this campaign, we are beginning with human rights. Because before we can talk about workforce, funding, working together, technology, sustaining the environment, about ageing and living well, we must talk about people.
And human rights are how we articulate what it means to be human in the first place.
Human rights are not optional extras. They are not abstract legal principles to be consulted only in times of crisis. They are the everyday grammar of dignity: the right to be seen, to be included, to be valued, to belong. They tell us that each person, whether providing care, receiving care, supporting care, or loving someone at a distance, that they matter.
For me, having walked with countless individuals, families, and frontline workers across Scotland, human rights have always been the foundation of meaningful care and support. They are what remain when the structures falter, when resources tighten, when systems strain. They are the compass we return to.
Over the coming weeks, Care Creates will explore a series of themes: each one offering a different window into what great care and support offers Scotland. But the truth is that every theme only makes sense through a human rights lens. Not as a slogan, and not as compliance, but as lived reality.
1. Fair Pay, Fair Work, Fair Care
A rights based system cannot exist without a workforce whose own rights are upheld.
Fair pay and secure conditions are not rewards rather they are human rights affirming necessities. They ensure that those who create safety, dignity, and independence for others are respected and supported themselves. Valuing the workforce builds stability for those who rely on support.
2. Integration
Human rights remind us that people do not live their lives in organisational silos.
Integration across health, social care, housing, communities and the independent sector, is about upholding the right to seamless, coherent, person led support. It is collaboration as a moral duty, not just an administrative challenge.
3. Future Ready Care
Technology, data, and digital tools hold immense potential. But future ready care is only future worthy when innovation strengthens autonomy, privacy, and personalisation, never when it replaces the human connections at care’s heart. Digital must deepen rights, not diminish them.
4. Investing in Care
Funding care as a priority is ultimately a human rights commitment. When budgets fail to reflect the true cost of care, human rights are weakened. When investment is long term, equitable, transparent and fair, people are empowered to live the lives they choose. We are reminded internally that investing in care is investing in national wellbeing and prosperity.
5. Climate Conscious Care
Care does not exist outside our environment. A climate conscious approach honours the right to safe, sustainable living conditions, particularly for those most at risk from climate related disruption. It is an act of justice as much as stewardship.
Human rights are not one theme among many. They are the thread running through each, giving coherence, meaning and purpose to the whole campaign.
Care Creates is a reminder that care is generative. It builds. It shapes. It transforms.
Care creates safety for those who feel exposed.
Care creates possibility for those who have been diminished by bureaucracy or circumstance.
Care creates connection in a world too often fractured.
Care creates community in places that have lost their sense of self.
Care creates value in a system that has undervalued too many for too long.
And most significantly:
Care creates a human rights respecting Scotland – but only if we choose for it to do so.
We stand at a moment of political, economic, and demographic challenge. But we also stand at a moment of opportunity. Advances in community care, learning from the pandemic, innovations in technology, and the emergence of strong sector voices mean that Scotland can reimagine what care is for and what it can achieve.
Human rights offer us the grounding to do so wisely.
Not simply as a framework for protecting people when things go wrong, but as a way of shaping decisions so things go right in the first place. As a way of centring the voices of those who are too often unheard. As a way of ensuring that social care is not a cost, but an investment in a flourishing, equitable society.
This campaign begins, as so much care begins, with a story.
A story of a care worker in Lochaber who told me, “I don’t see human rights as something I ‘apply’ I see them as how I walk into a room.”
A story of a daughter in East Lothian who said, “My mum didn’t lose her human rights when she went into a care home – she found people who helped her express them.”
A story of a young man supported in Ayrshire who shared, “No one had ever asked what I wanted for my life until my support worker did.”
These stories are the quiet revolutions that shape our nation.
Human rights make these revolutions possible.
As we launch Care Creates, I invite everyone, be you providers, workers, families, commissioners, policymakers and communities, politicians and candidates, to join us in rooting this campaign in human rights. This is a human rights journey. Let this be our shared foundation. Let it be the measure of success for every theme that follows.
Because when we uphold human rights, fair work follows.
When we uphold human rights, integration makes sense.
When we uphold human rights, innovation becomes ethical.
When we uphold human rights, investment becomes just.
When we uphold human rights, climate responsibility becomes care.
Everything begins here.
Because when we get human rights right, we get care right.
And when we get care right, Scotland thrives.
This is the beginning of a journey, not to assert what care is, but to discover what care creates.
Professor Donald Macaskill
#CareCreates
