Scottish Labour Leader Richard Leonard visited the Care Home and Sheltered Housing complex in Lumphinnans this week and said this is the model for the future of care and support in Scotland.
After a tour of the facilities where the Labour leader met with residents, staff, volunteers and users of Fife Day Care facilities Mr Leonard said he had been ‘very impressed’ with the standard of the buildings the level of care and support provided to all users. He said:
“I believe we must build a new national care service and that the public sector must lead both the provision and delivery of community care. This facility here in Lumphinnans is just first class and is a model that could and should be rolled out across the country. The fact that we have council services working alongside Fife Day Care as a third sector partner demonstrates what can be achieved”.
Fife MSP Alex Rowley joined Mr Leonard on the visit and said:
“I am very proud of the approach taken in Fife and wanted Richard to see and hear for himself what can be achieved when there is a political will to do so. We need an overhaul of health and social care that recognises care in the community is not care on the cheap and therefore we must make resources available for good quality provision and we need a national care standard for worker that includes good terms, conditions and wages for all care workers. Scottish Labour will work to achieve a national service build on best practice at a local level and building on what Labour is achieving here in Fife”.
Fife Council co-leader Cllr David Ross said:
“We are always delighted to welcome national politicians and show them the good work going on in Fife. The decision to rebuild and continue to run care homes is one that Labour committed to back in 2011 and we are proud of what we have delivered to date but recognise much more must be done to build a health and social care service that we can be proud of moving forward”.
