Researcher: Douglas, the report says repeatedly ‘We are not making recommendations about Scotland.’
Fraser: They won’t read the report and if they do, so what?
From BBC Scotland yesterday:
Private care homes are getting some of the heat for the spread of coronavirus and high numbers of residents’ deaths. That has led to claims they should be in public hands, and that they are raking off excess profits. There are examples of that. But the wider problem seems to have more to do with under-funding than profiteering. Indeed, private care homes in Britain are struggling with unsustainably low levels of government-paid fees. The shortfall is reckoned to be around £1bn, and much of that is made up with excess fees, paid by older and vulnerable residents, required to draw on often modest savings. That was the finding of the Competition and Markets Authority, when it took a close look at the private care home sector in 2017.
That was the finding for care homes in England. On several occasions, the report was careful not to include Scotland in its recommendations and to point to achievements here which we do not find in Fraser’s report :
8.46 We are not making a recommendation on capacity planning in Scotland and Wales, as we have identified that both of these devolved nations have plans in place to implement measures to address the problems we have identified. We welcome these as they seek to address the need for planning of care provision, and provide improved confidence to potential investors in respect of future returns. (p115)
8.48 In Scotland, there is ongoing reform of the national care home contract and the development of a cost of care calculator. Care home providers (through the CCPS), the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) and Scotland Excel are currently working on the development of a cost of care calculator which has been tested in care home fee negotiations in
Scotland. (p116)
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Shall we wait to see if an experienced reporter, Fraser, reconises his error, corrects it and apologises for it? Oh look, airborn gammon
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Perhaps it was Mr Fraser who did not read the report properly. Or, perhaps not.
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Any private company is a device, constructed by human ingenuity, whose prime purpose is to extract money from one part of the population to deliver it to another part.
‘Care’ is the name given here for the mechanism by which the money transfer is effected but care is not the prime driver of the business. That remains always, and in law, the delivery of returns to investors.
If we are truly to meet the needs for care of the vulnerable, the provision by private concerns whose basic function is to turn a profit is not the way to do it. Covid-19 has proved beyond doubt that this is so.
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As a point of reference the recent BBC ‘Hardtalk’ programme with Ian Lipkin world renowned Epidermiologist at Columbia Univ is worth a watch particularly on the probability of more pandemics perhaps even more deadly that Covid -19 and the current spread of the disease. Moreover without specifically mentioning Scotland he seemed to endorse the cautious stance being taken by the Scot Gov on ‘opening’ up the current lockdown restrictions and relaxing the 2 metre rule that is being advocated by some Tories.
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