In search of the Human Right to social care

The publication ‘The Opportunity is Now’ by the ALLIANCE is to be warmly welcomed.

Having been writing about the subject of human rights and social care for some time I believe we are at a critical juncture in Scotland as we consider the incorporation of international covenants into national law. This opportunity presents us with the prospect of being bold and ambitious and for me that simply means that we must create a distinctive human right to social care and support.

Why is that important?

It may seem self-evident and even simplistic to start with stating the distinctiveness of social care and support but having sat around so many political tables over the last winter and for much of the pandemic I think the whole system not least our political leadership needs a bit of a reminder of what social care support really is. The myopic focus and dependence upon the NHS has led many to assume that social care is but an adjunct of the NHS, a handmaiden, a rescuer, a reactive responder to continual NHS crises.

For instance, I do not think anyone can understand modern social care and support without also being aware of the civil rights context most especially of the disability rights movement in the 1960s onwards.  Whenever I hear commentators say we should return to health running everything or turn everything over to the NHS I quake – for years people literally fought to get out of the clutches of the healthcare system, to escape a health oriented clinical model and approach to disability, lifelong conditions, and older age; to shut down the institutions and asylums, to move people out of geriatric wards and units.

Social care as a human right

I have asserted over the last few years that social care and support should be recognised and seen as a distinctive human right. In fact, the justification for such an assertion I have expressed at length in two papers and in numerous blogs.

My contention was that as Scotland moves to incorporate international treaties that there is a very real opportunity to broaden a right to health to make it more ‘holistic’ and to include social care. I argued that this right to social care should be framed as a right with the core elements of the ability of citizens to exercise choice and control, independence and autonomy at its heart.

That was then … NOW… I think I backed the wrong horse!

What the experience of the pandemic in particular has taught me, with its overt clinicalisation and control of the social care space and landscape, and what even the last few weeks and months have shown with the idolisation of the NHS, is that it is no longer good enough just to embed the right to social care, to independent living and social services within a broadened definition of health but that it should be distinctively defined and validated as a right in its own terms – put simply social care and support is NOT healthcare and should not be mistaken for it and direct association with or sublimation within the right to health has become counterproductive.

The distinctive rights of choice, control, voice, independent living, inclusion, and participation which are at the heart of a social dimension to care and support which is non-clinical and even non-therapeutic – mean social care should be seen as a human right in its own terms. There is a ‘social and communitarian’ essence which neds enshrined in the new Scottish Bill of Rights.

Social care and support is my right to flourish and thrive, to be independent, to have voice, choice and agency – this is not about attending to my health needs but meeting my social care and support outcomes.

It is time for the human right to social care.

Read ‘The Opportunity is Now‘ Report in full.

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