Clik here to view.
It is both remarkable and disturbing that we need to be reassured that vulnerable and elderly people will not "end up on the streets" (Southern Cross seeks lifeline from No 10, 13 April). There was no need for such reassurances from the advent of the National Assistance Act 1948 and the abolition of workhouses until the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 facilitated the privatisation of care services. What the Southern Cross debacle reveals is that government has not been able to create mechanisms which enable the market to replicate the security of state provision.
It is notable that Southern Cross was at the heart of a House of Lords decision, YL v Birmingham City Council [2007] UKHL 27 [2008] 1 AC 95, that resulted in parliament extending the Human Rights Act 1998 to the publicly funded residents of private care homes. Yet the Human Rights Act, despite all its aspirations to protect the dignity of the individual, provides no protection from the destructive greed of profit-seekers who understand social care as an income stream rather than a public good. Until regulatory devices can be developed which ensure that service provision is sustainable and responsive to individual need, it would seem sensible to halt any further extensions of the market.
Dr Helen Carr
Kent Law School, University of Kent
