MY CAMPAIGN for reform of social care is personal, because my father, a former member of the Welsh Parliament, or Senedd, Owen John Thomas, has advanced dementia and is a resident of a care home near the Senedd in Cardiff Bay.

That is why I am using the opportunity to make improvements through an individual member’s Bill this month in the Senedd. This article, I hope, will be the starting point for a conversation to reform the care assessment process to focus on personal care.

A report in March this year by the Alzheimer’s Society, A Future for Personal Care, outlines why there should be a requirement for assessors to be trained in dementia so that they have an understanding of dementia and how it can affect someone, including the impact on their mental capacity and their ability to communicate their needs.

There is currently no requirement for an assessor to have specialist training in dementia, which can mean that people with dementia could have their needs assessed by someone without an understanding of their condition.

The assessment should focus on the person and identifying their individual needs. It shouldn’t just be an assessment of needs related to personal care that are essential to daily functioning, limited to help with washing and dressing.

It should be a more expansive assessment that includes the support the person may need to help them live a good quality life, one with meaning, connection and purpose.

This new focus on personal care to provide care built around the needs of the individual would be at the core of Plaid Cymru’s ambition for a truly integrated Welsh National Health and Care Service where personal care is free at the point of need.

The pandemic has exposed the dire state of social care and has made the need for urgent reform indisputable. Care has been the forgotten sector, underfunded, undervalued and its workers under-paid.

In the face of the ongoing, ever increasing cuts local councils have suffered (22 per cent in real terms since 2010) we must take action to improve the care and quality of life for an ageing population and more people who are living longer with life-limiting conditions.

Plaid Cymru believes that all social care should be free at the point of need. We take inspiration from the creation of the NHS. Wales was in the vanguard in the creation of the NHS, with Aneurin Bevan basing the vision of a public health system on the work of the Tredegar Workmen’s Medical Aid Society.

The government’s decision this week to use National Insurance, a tax paid across Britain, will result in Welsh taxpayers paying more — but having no say over how their money is spent or on how much funding is allocated to the Welsh government.

As my colleagues, Ceredigion MP Ben Lake and Plaid Cymru’s health spokesperson Rhun ap Iorwerth MS, have pointed out this is a deeply unfair and regressive method of raising funds, disproportionately impacting young people, businesses and those on the lowest income.

In effect, the Prime Minister is pinching pounds from Welsh families who can least afford it, while protecting higher earners and the wealthy.

The Welsh government has previously said it was ready to go it alone if Westminster was not ready to reform social care. Now that Boris Johnson has finally announced his plans, the Welsh government has no more justification to further delay its plans to solve the crisis in Wales.

If Bevan had waited for the Tories, then we wouldn’t have had a public health service. It is time to finish the job Bevan started.

A pressing issue that does not require a change in legislation is for the Welsh government to review their policy for visits by families to care homes.

While there was not a blanket ban on care home visits, the reality was very different for families and residents. I can say that from a personal point of view.

Being elected to the Senedd in May brought with it mixed emotions. My office is two doors down from Dad’s old office and I often think back fondly of when I used to visit him there as a schoolboy.

How proud I was that my dad, who worked so tirelessly over the years, had been elected to the new National Assembly for Wales in 1999. Also, from my office window I can practically see his care home — but I haven’t been able to see him.  

As a family we have had to adjust from very regular contact to none at all for weeks and months. This obviously has an impact on residents unsure why their families and friends are not visiting.

The Welsh government must review the Public Health Wales guidance towards visiting care homes, so people like me and many others can visit their loved ones.