The Social Care Innovators group have written an open letter to Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care:

Dear Mr Javid,

We would like to start by congratulating you on your new role as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. A role which we believe to be the most important in the country right now. Although we appreciate that you will be incredibly busy, inundated with communications and requests, we felt it was only right to write to you to express our wishes as stakeholders and leaders in the social care sector.

We are writing to urge you to ensure the ‘social care’ remit of your role is given equal importance to your ‘health’ remit. We believe strongly that social care plays a vital role in supporting the NHS with the challenges it faces now and in coming out of the pandemic. However, it has the equally vital role of supporting the wellbeing of people and providing the means by which they can live the lives they want to, in the place they want to call home.

There are enormous opportunities that the dedicated social care sector can offer with well-informed reform and co-production. It’s crucial that you listen to the voices from people drawing on social care, the people who they are important to and the people who work within the sector – who are the experts. They have the answers and are here waiting to support you to deliver on the Government’s promise to fix social care by the end of this year. It absolutely can be done if we all work together.

We are excited that your new appointment will bring the change that has always been promised but never fulfilled, it is long overdue. We would like to invite you to join us at a virtual meeting with the Social Care Innovators group, at a time to suit you over the next couple of months. We are a grass roots, action-based group made up of a wide variety of members from across the UK and linking closely with The Care Workers’ Charity, The Caring View and NACAS. Our only goal is to innovate and build a better social care for the benefit of all.

We very much look forward to hearing from you.

Yours Sincerely

Jane Brightman on behalf of the Social Care Innovators