Gray vows to end postcode lottery of social care for elderly Scots

LABOUR today pledged a Scottish Charter for Social Care to improve the way old folk are looked after and guarantee them fair and equal provision across the country.

Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray was visiting Dalkeith Community Centre to unveil details of the party's proposed National Care Service to run alongside the National Health Service.

He also published a report on the issue by an expert group he set up last year, led by Sir John Arbuthnott, which said the change should be backed by a charter assuring vulnerable citizens about the standards of care they would receive.

The number of elderly people in Scotland requiring support is predicted to increase from 90,000 to 126,000 by 2016, as the population ages.

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Mr Gray said Labour intended to meet the challenge by integrating health and social care into a single organisation, delivering at a local level, with one dedicated budget.

He said he wanted the new National Care Service to be up and running within the lifetime of the next parliament.

He said: "If I become First Minister I will act on Sir John Arbuthnott's main recommendation for a new Charter for Social Care, to ensure consistency and fairness across Scotland.

"People still get caught too often in the crossfire between the NHS and councils. And far too often we expect the most vulnerable of our citizens at the most difficult time in their lives to negotiate a maze of benefit, health and social care bureaucracies just to get the care they need. The time has come for Scotland to create an integrated care service to stand alongside the National Health Service. This is about delivering national standards of care and an end to the postcode lottery."

Meanwhile SNP leader Alex Salmond was today touring key seats including Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale, with Nationalist candidate Christine Grahame, before joining Edinburgh Eastern candidate and Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill and Edinburgh Northern and Leith candidate Shirley-Anne Somerville in the Capital.

Nominations for the Scottish Parliament elections closed last night with straightfoward four-way contests between the main parties in most seats in and around the Lothians. However there is an independent standing in Midlothian North & Musselburgh and the two West Lothian seats have candidates from the Scottish National Front. A total of 14 parties and four independents are fighting on the list.