Scottish Parliament passes Care Reforms with a sigh of relief - but the job is not done

This week could have been the week that the Scottish Parliament went down in history and passed the most significant piece of legislation put forward across the whole of the UK in the realm of health and wellbeing since the creation of the National Health Service by following it up with a Scottish National Care Service.

However, the Scottish Government instead launched a botched process designed to concentrate power in the hands of Ministers instead of delivering care via Local Authorities, and did it via a backwards legislation process of trying to pass a "Framework Bill" without a clear idea of what an NCS would look like and a promise that Ministers would sort it all out later and without full democratic oversight.

The entire idea of the Government's idea of National Care Service became unsustainable and, late last year, the Government was forced to back down and drop it.

What we got instead this week was a Care Reform Bill designed to salvage the last of the good from the Bill. After a more-than four hour debate on Tuesday, it passed unanimously.

There is good in the Bill that passed. Reforms such as Anne's Law - the right of visitation for care home residents - and the right to breaks for carers will help prevent chronic burnout especially amongst undersupported unpaid carers. The right of sectoral bargaining will help to improve pay and conditions for care workers too often exploited by private care companies based in tax havens.

But even this Bill has dropped key provisions such as the extension of your right of Freedom of Information to private care homes that spend public money - something the Government blocked under the excuse that further consultation was needed (Common Weal is a member of one of the stakeholder groups the Government is consulting).

And an amendment to allow Local Authorities to cap the amount of profit that the private sector can extract from care - something that could have allowed Councils to mandate that care be run on a not-for-profit basis - was blocked before it even reached the Chamber.

The overwhelming impression from Parliament is that the politicians are frankly just glad to see a conclusion to this sorry saga but it cannot be over. The reforms that we welcome in the Bill that passed are vital and will improve the lives of carers and the cared for but they never needed a National Care Service to enact. Conversely, that these vital reforms have passed does not negate the need for that National Care Service.

It clearly won't happen now until after the next election but the next Scottish Parliament cannot be allowed to drop this idea and pretend like it never existed. It must be an early priority to bring back a National Care Service Bill and to do it right next time. One that is publicly owned, not-for-profit, and which delivers care locally.

We need a National Care Service as worthy of the name as we all believe that the National Health Service should be. To see what that Service would look like, see our book Caring for All.