Well winter has well and truly arrived in the past week. Chatting to care providers in parts of Scotland they have been reflecting to me the struggles of staff getting through snow and ice to work in local care homes or to deliver care and support in the homes of their fellow citizens. Every year I am reminded of the astonishing professional dedication and no little sacrifice of those who in all weathers epitomise the essence of caring compassion and who get through to their place of work despite all the seasons throw at them.
As the first frosts of November glisten on the grass, there is also a sense of our communities moving into the quiet, reflective rhythm of winter as we hunker on down from cold and ice and today as I sit and write this also as we batten down the hatches from the gales and stormy blasts which seem to take up residence at this time of year.
All this meteorological change is resonant of years gone by and is uppermost in my mind as I reflect that tomorrow is Stir Up Sunday, the day traditionally set aside for preparing the Christmas pudding. The tradition dates back to Victorian times when the family would gather five weeks before Christmas to stir the Christmas pudding and, on a Sunday, church congregations uttered the prayer ‘Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works…’
Maybe not so much now but in the past families would gather, sleeves rolled up, each person taking their turn to stir the mix, add a wish, and fold in the ingredients that will mature into something rich and sustaining for the festive season. Nowadays I suspect with the pressure of time we simply have to get the job done or there will be no pudding or cake on the main day.
But if you allow me this week, I want to use Stir Up Sunday as a metaphor to share some reflections on social care in Scotland – a sector and community in urgent need of collective action, vision, and hope. Much like a pudding, the care system relies on a delicate balance of ingredients, each essential, each contributing to the whole. But as frost signals the arrival of winter, the cracks in the system remind us that some key elements are missing, and time is running out to prepare for the challenges ahead.
So, what are the ingredients we must urgently focus on to ensure the resilience and future of social care in Scotland?
Workforce: the flour that holds it all together.
No pudding rises without flour, and no care system thrives without its workforce. Across Scotland, dedicated care staff are the backbone of our communities, and evidence that dedication as I said, in all weathers and conditions. Yet they are overworked, underpaid, and often undervalued. This winter, we are faced with the bizarre situation that we risk losing some highly skilled individuals because we are not recognising and rewarding them sufficiently. How can we with any sense of achievement declare that paying the Living Wage is the pinnacle of our ambition? We should and could value social care and its workforce by paying so much more, and that inevitably means that as most social care is bought by the public purse that the Scottish Budget needs to recognise this with adequate funding for local authorities.
Scottish Care is soon to publish a statement on the Scottish Budget which will be presented to the Scottish Parliament on the 4th December and I hope at the heart of that Budget will not just be an agreement to fund the Living Wage but to seek to go much further and truly embed Fair Work commitments.
We also need the UK Government to urgently address the failing immigration system which is preventing people from being attracted to work in social care in Scotland. It appears to me that the current Labour administration at Westminster is just repeating and carrying on the failures of their Conservative predecessors – just doing it more quietly and subtly and all to the demerit of Scotland in particular.
We must stir with urgency to address fair pay, improved conditions, and recognition for the critical role care workers play.
We need more than words of gratitude. We need investment that reflects the true value of care, creating a sector where workers are supported, respected, and empowered. Without this fundamental ingredient, the structure collapses, and the system crumbles.
A sustainable sector: the sweetness of inclusion
The dried fruit in our pudding brings sweetness and depth, much like a human rights-based approach brings dignity and fairness to social care. As we work towards embedding the principles of Scotland’s National Care Service, we must remember that all parts of the sector need to have a voice at the table around which decisions will be made about its future.
The recent debates around the National Care Service have been fractious and territorial and one thing I am clear on is that reform is urgently required and that cannot be the continuation of a status quo where control and power are vested in the interests of local government. There needs to be a power-shift towards those who use and work and deliver care and support and not those who contract and commission, and control in their own vested interest.
There needs even more immediately to be a recognition that the charities and private organisations that deliver the majority of social care in Scotland, must be heard when we say that we are simply not sustainable. Urgent attention to the National Insurance issue both in terms of Westminster mitigations but also in terms of the Scottish Budget is an imperative. The media has rightly picked up our concerns about the care home and hospice sector, but it is even more fundamental that we address the fact that without intervention large parts of our homecare sector will simply collapse.
If a care home dedicates around 75-80% of its running costs to staffing that figure is closer to 90-95% for most homecare organisations. If you are as they are then faced with a 30% increase in staffing costs because of the UK Labour Government Budget including NI then the sums simply don’t compute and there is only one answer and its closure. If care at home organisations close in large numbers in Scotland, people who require support in their own homes will have to be admitted to hospital and those in hospital will not be able to return home. The scenario is nightmarish in proportion.
Integration and collaboration: stirring together for strength.
A pudding’s ingredients only become cohesive when stirred together with care and intention. Similarly, social care cannot operate in isolation. The urgent need for true integration between health and social care must be prioritised – not as an afterthought but as a foundational principle. We are light years away from such integrated, cross sectoral working and it dismays me that work in this area is the first to be cut when budgets are stretched.
Stirring collaboration means breaking down silos, aligning policies, and ensuring that care is seamless across every stage of life. From hospital discharge to home care, the journey should feel like a single, supported path. Winter reveals the weaknesses of disjointed systems; we must mix and work together for strength. If we are not all working together, we are working apart.
Community and solidarity: the binding spirit.
Finally, no pudding is complete without the touch of brandy, whisky or spirit to bind it all together. In social care, that spirit is community – our shared responsibility to care for one another. This is not about maintaining people as they are but working to enable them to live their life to the fullest in care home and own home. As the frost deepens, the cost-of-living crisis bites harder, as people really begin to experience the devastating and potentially deadly effects of the withdrawal of the Winter Fuel Allowance as a universal benefit in Scotland, and vulnerable individuals face greater challenges, the power of community becomes even more vital.
Social care is not just about services; it’s about people, relationships, and connection. We must weave solidarity into every decision, ensuring that no one is left behind, whether they are a unpaid family carer, a supported person, or a family member navigating the complexities of the system.
As Stir Up Sunday approaches, let us each take a turn to stir the mix for social care in Scotland. The ingredients are before us: workforce investment, a sustainable and funded system, integration and whole system working, and community. But it will take collective effort, political will, and a shared vision to create something that truly nourishes and sustains us through the challenges ahead.
The frost may be appearing, but winter is not a time to despair. It is a time to prepare, to strengthen, and to stir hope into our efforts. Together, we can ensure that social care in Scotland rises to meet the needs of its people – rich, robust, and full of promise.
I leave you with some of the words of the Scottish poet Gerry Cambridge who captures the interplay between winter’s harshness and the promise of renewal in his poem “Processional at the Winter Solstice.” The poem portrays the desolate end of the year, with imagery of darkness and frost symbolising death and stillness. However, it also hints at the return of light and the rebirth of the sun, reflecting a sense of hope and the cyclical nature of seasons.
Now, let us roll up our sleeves. The pudding won’t stir itself.
Processional at the Winter Solstice.
He has gone down into darkness at the wrecked end of the year
And is lying, gaberlunzie, in the needled nest of frost.
The arctic thrushes call for him although he cannot hear,
And the worm too understands him in the chilled grip of its dark,
And the ptarmigan in blizzards where no thought is worth a crumb,
And treecreepers in shivering puffs in Wellingtonias’ bark.
Shop windows glint in city lights like ice and sky, but still
No tinsel gifts can touch him, freed to silence like a stone’s;
His face is white as paper’s white in miles-high midnight chill.
He lies as plain as frost-dust where those starving thrushes call,
And his lime and ray-struck armoury could hardly be less small
On the anvil of beginnings in the sun’s gate on the wall.
Gerry Cambridge
from Notes for Lighting a Fire (Glenrothes: HappenStance, 2012)
Processional at the Winter Solstice by Gerry Cambridge – Scottish Poetry Library
Photo by Bruna Branco on Unsplash
Donald Macaskill
Last Updated on 23rd November 2024 by donald.macaskill
