A casual observer might have been a bit confused by today’s statement at Holyrood.
The government came out to declare that it remained committed to creating a National Care Service, and is still pressing a bill through parliament.
But let’s be crystal clear: it’s been scrapped.
Yes, a bill bearing its name will someday pass, but care minister Maree Todd has agreed to remove part one – the part literally titled “the National Care Service”.
The vision originally set out by Nicola Sturgeon – of a game-changing network of care boards across the country, a mirror for the NHS – is completely gone.
It had already been hugely diluted, stripped back to a national oversight board, amid concerns over costs and a lack of detail in the plans.
All that’s left now is a non-statutory advisory board, and widely-supported proposals to strengthen the rights of care home residents.
This is not a National Care Service as it has ever been promised.
The government is actually quite keen to lean on the fact there is no parliamentary support for the plans, because it spreads the blame around a bit.
But it has been clear for some time that the plans could never become a reality, because they had lost the support of councils, staff unions and essentially all of the key groups involved in actually delivering care on the front lines.
