Ealing has been hit hard by Covid, and as a borough, we are still recovering. The two years of the pandemic have shone a harsh light of reality on the strain placed on our public health and adult social care services by decades of austerity, prolonged underfunding, and cuts to local government spending.

Despite a decade of promises, we continue to face a crisis in adult social care, with a rapid rise in demand and no funding solution from the Tory government on the horizon. We’ve also seen that communities were affected unfairly and unequally by COVID-19 as the pandemic shone a light on health inequalities that already existed.

We know that even more people are going to be turning to us for help over the next few years so we need to make sure that our services can continue to protect and support everyone who needs it. Yet we want to ensure that residents can also pursue healthy lives.

This is why we are pledging to continue a holistic approach to health – extending the scope of our health offer by promoting active travel, great leisure facilities, and working to put mental health on a par with physical health. We’ll also fighting for our local health services to be secure and properly funded and do all we can to ensure that the Tories never put vital services like our A&E at risk again.

We’re pledging to pay the London Living Wage to all care workers in Ealing and will continue to undertake ground-breaking work to promote independence for older people, ensure that more people are able to stay at home without compromising their care.

The last few years have shown us that we need to think differently about health. Enabling healthy lives is about recovering from the pandemic, but it’s also about ensuring that we can harness the power of local government and our communities to make a difference.

WE PLEDGE TO

1. Ensure every care worker in Ealing is paid the London living wage, and work with homecare and care home providers to increase standards and quality, exploring new ways to ensure anyone in need of care has access to the public services they need – including exploring direct council, mutual and cooperative delivery.
2. Empower people and families who receive financial support for social care to have greater freedom, control and power over how that money is spent, bringing people, families and communities together through a mutual and cooperative approach to commissioning care.
3. Establish a new community based support network to deal with social isolation and improve mental health resilience, ensuring that anyone on the edge of mental crisis, suffering from loneliness and still recovering from the impact of pandemic lockdowns has the support they need.
4. Deliver 300 new state of the art, purpose built supported accommodation home, to enable older people to lead independent lives, and meet the need for affordable homes that also provide additional support.
5. Work to prevent older people needing to go into care homes, supporting 3,000 of the most vulnerable residents get the care they need in their own homes, and invest at least £20m in home adaptations.
6. Take on the huge health inequalities within our communities that the pandemic has highlighted, and ensure that we learn the lessons from COVID-19, investing £100m in the next four years to enable people to live healthy, active and independent lives from day one, and publish an annual ‘Health of the Borough’ report setting out how every part of the council contributes to reducing health inequality.
7. Continue to defend Ealing Hospital, our Accident and Emergency department, oppose further cuts and closures of acute services and demand the Government gives the NHS the resources it needs to clear the huge record waiting lists dating from before the pandemic and timely access to GP appointments.
8. Work even harder to ensure people don’t have to spend any day longer than necessary in hospital and are enabled and empowered to recover quickly and effectively at home.
9. COVID-19 has shown clearly that the government should fix social care, so it is not left to council taxpayers, or families forced to sell their homes to afford to pay. We will campaign for a long-term settlement and a national care service that ensures everyone has the care they need.