On NHS reform Ed Miliband is urging the government to slow down and “go back to the drawing board.” On the provision of adult social care, however, he is urging them to speed up.
In a press conference this morning on a baking Royal Festival Hall rooftop, the Labour Party leader admitted to being “sickened” by the recent Panorama investigation into the Winterborne View care home.
Attempting to tap into a vein of public outrage over the footage, and couched in the narrative of ‘generational opportunity’ that’s become a cornerstone of Labour’s strategy in recent months, Miliband called for an independent investigation into what had happened and accused the government of not doing enough.
Accusing the Prime Minister of mismanagement and incompetence over NHS reform and a ‘total breach of his promise of no more top-down reorganisation’, over social care reform, Miliband was still prepared to extend a “serious offer” of cross-party talks on the Dilnot Commission’s recommendations into the care system; a case of olive branch in one hand and a firm stick in the other.
Pressed twice on whether Labour had been asleep at the wheel in government when many of the problems in social care had arisen, Miliband emphasised the party had strengthened inspection processes but lay some of the blame for floundering reform at the door at the failure to achieve cross party consensus. The ‘their fault in opposition, their fault in government’ line is unlikely to endear the government to the non-partisan discussion Miliband seems keen to have.
The government’s “bad plan” on the NHS had become a “mismanaged plan,” argued the Labour leader. On social care they didn’t have a plan at all.
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