Kate Garraway has confronted the Health Secretary about the "overriding" cost of care that her family faced during her late husband Derek Draper's illness.
During a heated discussion on Good Morning Britain, the presenter reminded Wes Streeting that today marked the one-year anniversary of her husband's death and she was reflecting on their experience as he outlined his plans to reform the care system.
Kate challenged Mr Streeting following his announcement of an independent investigation into social care, which is expected to lay the groundwork for the "National Care Service" pledged in Labour's manifesto.
The review is set to commence in April, but any significant changes to social care may not be implemented until 2028, offering little solace to families currently grappling with care costs, the Mirror reports.
Derek died last year at the age of 56 due to severe complications from Covid. Kate questioned the Cabinet minister about the immense challenge of "dealing with the funding of care".
She acknowledged her fortune in having a well-paid job to cover the care costs but confessed she now has "excessive unpayable debt". She expressed concern for others in similar situations and urged him to consider the urgency of the issue after he announced the review into the care system will take years.
Kate revealed to Mr. Streeting, "I'm going to be honest. In my mind, I'm thinking about the situation with Derek. It actually happens to be the anniversary of his death - one-year anniversary of his death - today, which is a day only relevant to me, but over the last few weeks, the family and I have been talking about the challenges we faced this time last year."
Join the Daily Record's WhatsApp community here and get the latest news sent straight to your messages.
Adding further detail she continued, "And one of the overriding ones until he went back into intensive care before he passed away, was dealing with the funding of care. At the time of his death, there were two appeals that hadn't been heard for funding. It kept on getting pushed back and pushed back.
"In the meantime, and I'm lucky I've got an incredible job which is well-paid, I was having to fund the situation. Now I've got excessive unpayable debt because of it, and if I'm in that position, what else are people going to be? People can't afford four more years of this?"
Upon starting to answer, Mr. Streeting said, "Firstly, Kate and I know lots of viewers will feel the same having followed - I think that's why the anniversary you're going through yourself and your family, which all of us are with you with totally heart..."
Kate interjected at that point: "I know you feel it too - I only mention it because I'm aware that there are people that are in the situation that just don't have that time."
The Health Secretary went on to say: "Yeah, I was going to say, Kate, I think that's why your story connected with so many people. It's not just that you're a familiar face on people's screens and your viewers feel they've got relationship with you as a presenter, it's also because your experience with Derek and your family's experience resonates with so many people across the country who are struggling with the same costs or the same unmet needs or similar experiences."
He added: "And I think one of the reasons why we've ended always back into this sort of the short-termist cycle of failure, is whenever we talk about social care, there are costs involved, and that sort of makes people run for the hills and want to stick their head in the sand in politics, because sometimes those numbers can be scary."
He further explained: "And one of the reasons I genuinely think, even with the majority of the size that we've got, it's a good thing to try and build cross-party consensus is I want to come up with a plan that means whoever's in government after the next general election or the one after that, whether it's a Labour government or a Conservative government or a coalition or whoever that, broadly speaking, we keep the same direction of travel on social care in the way that we have with the NHS since 1948."
Get the latest celebrity gossip and telly news sent straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily Showbiz newsletter here.
:quality(85):upscale()/2024/04/24/878/n/3019466/36c5693c662965c5d1ce91.72473705_.jpg)
English (US) ·