Introduction

This is a chapter that was not envisaged when the proposal for this book was submitted in 2019. Much has happened since then, and continues to evolve; therefore, this chapter can still be little more than an early commentary on the impact of COVID-19 on the adult social care ‘system’. What is clear, however, is that COVID-19 thrust adult social care into public awareness and political consciousness in an unexpected and startling way, the longer-term consequences of which remain uncertain (Department of Health and Social Care, 2020f).

The narrative throughout this volume has been of a model of commissioning and provision that has been struggling, if not failing outright, and that could therefore easily be destabilised by any of its inherent weaknesses. Prior to 2020, the forces of destabilisation tended to be around funding shortfalls and a fragile provider market. COVID-19 constituted something very different: a colossal stress test of everything previously taken for granted about the economic, political and social order. The timing of the virus was unanticipated, the severity underestimated and the preparedness barely existent; adult social care was soon caught in its headlights.

The immediate response was around clinical matters – testing, tracing and tracking, the acquisition of personal protective equipment (PPE), and the curtailment of business activity and social interactions via lockdown. However, the pandemic also created some very specific challenges for adult social care and, in so doing, revealed much about the way the sector is perceived by politicians and policymakers. These challenges reflect many of the issues analysed in the preceding chapters, notably:

• • deficiencies in funding and administration

• • fragility of provision

• • low policy salience

• • unethical policy and practice

Deficiencies in funding and administration

Chapter 6 drew attention to the ad hoc ‘sticking plaster’ model of funding for local government and, by extension, adult social care – a confusing mix of modest sums to fix crisis-related problems, often distributed through NHS organisations and unrelated to any coherent strategy for the sector. The COVID-19 crisis witnessed a continuation of this approach; within the space of three months, no less than eight new pots of money were allocated from central government to ameliorate the impact of the pandemic on local government.