Announcement to come on future of National Care Service

Social Care Minister Maree Todd will update Holyrood later on the future of the National Care Service, which is widely expected to be dropped.

The original plan – the showpiece of this term of SNP government – was to transfer social care responsibility from councils to a new national board.

However the idea does not have sufficient support to get through parliament.

A source told PJ Scotland an advisory board would be set up in its place. This should mean that a number of smaller reforms in the National Care Service Bill can become law.

If the National Care Service plan is dropped, it will be the latest blow to hit one of the SNP government’s major policies.

Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon described plans for the service as the most ambitious reform since devolution when it was announced in 2021.

Ministers said the service, inspired by the NHS, would end the “postcode lottery” in care provision and ensure “consistently high-quality care”.

But opposition parties have repeatedly questioned whether the Scottish government could afford to set up and manage the service effectively.

Council body Cosla and trade unions have withdrawn their support for the project, while a number of health boards and care organisations have also expressed serious concerns.

The Scottish Greens also withdrew their backing in October last year, meaning the SNP no longer had enough support to get the measures through Holyrood.

When the plans were further delayed in November, First Minister John Swinney said more time was needed to consider views and “get the proposals right”.

Todd previously said she was “absolutely committed” to the plans after the latest delay was announced.

Health secretary Neil Gray said the plans had been “delayed, not scrapped”.

Rachel Cackett, chief executive of the Coalition of Care and Support Providers, said she now expected “significant” sections of the bill to be removed in the latest announcement.

She told the PJ’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “The main parts of the bill were to enact the recommendations made during Covid when everyone is out clapping for social care.

“This is a bill that was meant to be about improving the support that people get in their homes and their communities every single day.

“What we have ended up with is a bill that needed work, where the right people were not spoken to at the right moments and actually now we have got into the politics of a government almost in the last year of its term trying to do a major reform, that’s never where any government wants to be.”

Some smaller reforms contained in the bill do retain support at Holyrood.

Anne’s law, which allows people in care homes to receive visits from a named love one even in restricted measures, is expected to pass as part of the legislations.

It is named after Anne Duke, who died aged 63 in November 2021 after being cut off from her family while battling early-onset dementia during the Covid pandemic.

Her family has campaigned for a change in the law, which was put into national standards in March 2022.

A proposal for a national social work agency to provide a national standard for that area of care is also expected to pass.

The right to breaks for unpaid carers and new rules on the sharing of information in the care system between health and social care are also expected to remain in the bill.