Have you ever realised what a fool you've been?
Have you ever been in a relationship and realised you've taken the other-half for granted? Have you ever regretted something to the point where you'd give anything to put it right?
When we are young we blunder through relationships, in maturity we struggle with them and in old age... take it from me, you live with your regrets.
Regrets about the stupid things we do, are forgivable. Regrets for calculated harm and neglect are different. They are the things people remember on their deathbed.
Regret is a memory that stays awake.
Some people turn their regrets into works of art, or poetry. Governments turn them into guidance... or, at least, this one does.
Black, san-serif typeface, on stark white paper. No pictures. The only relief, some passages in grudging italics.
Given the choice, my guess, the DH+ would have printed it on hand made lavender paper, from the Etsy catalogue, written it in a romantic typeface designed by Emily Spadoni.
I can imagine the envelope sprinkled with perfume. Probably, 'Joy' by Jean Patou. And, of course a ribbon... satin, tied in a bow.
This love letter is an attempt to repair a relationship between ministers and social care, that has been pushed to the brink of disaster.
This says I've always loved you, I haven't always told you. I've taken you for granted. Now, I need you... oh, how I regret it... I've always loved you. Trust me I have and I do... so will you please keep washing my socks...
This is disgraceful... oozing with praise for colleagues who have been forgotten, neglected and bullied by regulators.
Small care home operators driven out of business by bureaucracy and unreasonable demands. Care workers, defined by immigration authorities as low-skilled, now praised as indispensable heroes.
This is a love affair, defined by duplicity. Page after page of praise, pads out a document that is dragged into testing, without a timescale.
To keep love alive with gifts, is the gift of false love. The gifts are promises of training, portals, support and an oath to love social workers as much as the government loves the NHS... but no jewels, just a badge.
Their plan, now, to advertise 20,000 adult social care vacancies, and fill them in three months. Police checks will be done in days.
Who will pay the wages for this new battalion?
Politicians have repeatedly kicked adult social-care into the long-grass, promised reviews and frankly lied. This government and their predecessors have got away with blue-murder with the way it has treated adult social care.
Staff, often poorly trained in infection control. Few care-homes companies will pay for a full-time nursing presence.
Many of the bigger operators could, by now, have arranged private testing for their staff. Ocado managed it. Where was their resilience-planning and emergency-reserve PPE stocks?
Many are struggling;
Four Seasons went onto administration last April, Bupa Care sold part of its portfolio, Barchester Healthcare's plans to sell, scuppered by Brexit and David Behan's, (Yes, him; the former boss of the CQC, NHSI board associate and the head of Health Education England), HC-One, made a pretax loss.
We need to think this through; if care homes are so important, the staff so vital and the sector unstable and fragmented, maybe it's time to consolidate it... nationalise it... the National Care Service...
... like Bevan nationalised hosptials in 1948 and gave us the NHS.
May your god bless the men and women who work behind the locked-down doors of our care homes and their colleagues who travel, from door to door, giving care in the kitchens and bedrooms of the clients who have become their best friends.
They deserve all the recognition, the acclimation, the applause but beware the hollow promises of a perfidious lover.
Have the best weekend you can.
