Lansley and Burstow and those in the Department of Health have extolled choice as an aim to strive towards in both health and social care. ‘Choice and Control’ was used as the key phrase as the agenda moved in Adult Social Care and it has been picked up as the NHS and Social Care Bill made it’s way through Parliament. After all, who doesn’t want choice? Who doesn’t want control? The answer is that not everyone is has the capacity or desire to make a number of choices in critical situations . It worked to an extent in social care in so far as those who are able and willing to choose or those who are well equipped with better funding and family advocates are able to choose. However we have also seen the policy struggle behind in promoting true choice or in fact, any choice to those who are not as able to pick up the mantle themselves nor who have informal social networks to assist in this respect.
Does having ‘choice’ mean seizing control? Are choice and control two parts of the same coin? Does one lead to the other? Perhaps. My concern is with those who are either unable through issues of capacity or illness or unwilling (because – you know – sometimes that’s a real choice to be made too) to actively ‘choose’ the type of care they receive or the way the care is divided into a support plan.
Where we see the ‘managed’ local authority support plans, we see little ‘choice’ and no control. We see the same large agencies with block contracts tied into providing the same packages of care on the same terms that they always did. The promises of more flexibility have evaporated into the ether of local government spending cuts.
I’m not against ‘choice’ but I’m completely against false choice. I’m against the meaning of the word ‘choice’ being warped into something that makes good political capital for the government with no meaning when ‘choice’ has not been extended in any real terms. I’m against lazy use of the word ‘choice’. The government (and that’s the last government as much as this one) seem remarkably fond of it. Funny, that.
I urge anyone who hasn’t read Max Pemberton’s piece in the Telegraph a couple of days ago to take some time to read it. He writes about contract won by Virgin Healthcare to run services in Surrey. He explains this notion of ‘choice’
. The emphasis on choice was something that was repeated ad nauseam by ministers in an attempt to sugar the bitterest aspects of the Bill. The legislation would provide choice, we were assured. Everyone likes choice, don’t they? And we all nodded in innocent agreement.
I have argued before that in a healthcare setting, choice is a misnomer: all hospitals should provide an excellent level of care because so many people – the old, the infirm – are unable to exercise choice because of geographical or physical limitations. But only now that we can see the shape of the NHS Bill can we truly assess what choice actually means.
And this is the reality as it exists more starkly in health care than in social care.
I chose my local hospital for treatment because it was the only one I could reach within an hour by public transport. The people who live where I live will be making similar ‘choices’. Those with access to cars may make other choices and go to ‘better’ hospitals further away (although I have to emphasis my treatment was great at the local hospital even though it’s ‘ratings’ and ‘feedback’ are poor!). Those who can only access public transport will have less choice.
Similarly, my GP is on the same road as me. I have had gripes. Do I go to another? No, because when I’m sick, I want the nearest surgery. I don’t have time to research the different specialisms and natures of the GPs around me. This would be even more notable if I were in a rural area.
So who is this ‘choice’ for? For the class of people that the politicians pander to. Those who have the means and ability to choose? How can we truly make choice genuine and meaningful in systems which inherently try to blind themselves to the different cultures. attitudes and natures which do discriminate in the way access to choice is made.
Perhaps this is a way to increase equitable services and access to services across health and social care. I have long believed that advocacy may be a solution. Sometimes I walk away from work and realise that the people that I spend time with on a day to day basis are not the people that politicians either speak for or to. That’s why, as a social worker, it’s important for me to remind and nip away at these groups of people who won’t be clamouring for their pens (real or virtual) to engage elected members.
We have left behind a whole swathe of people who have not been able to ‘choose’ are a part of the personalisation agenda. We must push on and the voices will grow louder as others see this happening in healthcare.
Choice is a luxury of the more able. Good universal services for everyone must be the essential bedrock.
The NHS and Social Care Act has passed, but the voices must increase. We who can choose much speak for those who cannot.
Unsafe Spaces 