Greater investment, recognition and support for social care services is essential, Welsh councils have said at yesterday’s evidence session at the UK COVID-19 Inquiry. 

Giving evidence to the Inquiry’s social care module, Dr Chris Llewelyn, WLGA Chief Executive, set out the challenges the sector faced before, during and after the pandemic – and the lessons that must be learned. 

He highlighted the long-standing fragility of the sector, with ongoing workforce pressures around recruitment, retention and morale, and warned that despite social care’s critical front-line role during the pandemic, it was too often treated as secondary to the NHS. 

Dr Llewelyn told the Inquiry that social care staff in Wales worked under intense pressure, shouldering emotional, physical and psychological burdens. They faced increased workloads, frequent changes to guidance, safety risks, and limited access to PPE, testing and vaccination in the early stages of the pandemic. 

The WLGA is calling for social care to be treated as an equal partner in a truly integrated system. It says the sector needs: 

• Greater investment in prevention and care in the community 
• Parity of esteem and reward with the NHS 
• Continued support for infection control training 
• Clearer alignment between national, regional and local responses 
• Updated guidance and pandemic planning based on lived experience 

Dr Chris Llewelyn, Chief Executive of the WLGA said: 

“Learning the lessons of the pandemic experience is important but this also relates to the ways in which social care is valued as a service and as a profession. Within the sector, there needs to be a better understanding of infection control and prevention, but within a wider framework which looks at recruitment, retention, training, qualifications, continuous professional development and elevating the sector as a whole.” 

“The more engagement there is with people who work at the operational and delivery side, the more effective it’s likely to be. The earlier that local government is engaged in developing guidance, the more effective it will be.”