The UK has been fully signed up to publicly owned healthcare for generations.
It is an intrinsic part of society which no one but an extreme fringe would want to scrap.
The NHS is established and protected here in Scotland. But there is a corner of care which has been left out of the system.
Care homes are mostly in private hands – and it’s a situation a growing number of politicians and campaigners want to change.
It took a health pandemic to force the issue into full view.
We reveal today how 70 per cent of private care homes had suspected Covid-19 cases, compared with 38 per cent in voluntary and not-for-profit establishments.
The death toll in care homes has been deeply alarming.
Former education secretary Angela Constance led calls in Parliament yesterday to create a new national care service, along the lines of the NHS.
She imagines a system with the focus on not-for-profit care. A clear national plan that builds around people in homes or their community with “clear lines of accountability”.
She rightly draws attention to profiteering by often faceless corporations in a system supposed to put care first.
The call is joined by Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard, who makes his case clearly in the Record today.
The GMB union also see a big problem with care workers missing out on the benefits of public service conditions.
These serious issues are going to be scrutinised in the inevitable public inquiry when this crisis eases.
The idea of a National Care Service should be considered alongside that probe.
A radical shake-up of care could bring workers into the public sector with greater access to security.
It could tie up links with the wider health service.
However it is done, it must be put squarely on the political agenda.
If we really want to create a more caring society once we emerge from this crisis then what better legacy for the Covid generation than the creation of a National Care Service?
Scotland’s vulnerable people and frontline care workers cannot be let down again.
