BBC TWO ANNOUNCE ED BALLS: CARE IN CRISIS

BBC Factual announces Ed Balls: Care In Crisis (w/t), a revealing and thought-provoking two-part series from Expectation for BBC Two and BBC iPlayer, in which Ed returns to Yorkshire to spend time in a typical mid-sized care home, St Cecilia’s in Scarborough.

Recently Ed Balls watched his mother, who has dementia, move into a care home. She entered a system in crisis, a crisis which has only been deepened by the Covid-19 pandemic. Now the economist and former politician is taking an immersive journey into the elderly care sector, to explore what’s gone wrong and what could help put it right.

Ed Balls says: "The crisis in social care is deepening, and we need to work together to sort it now. Because my mum has dementia and lives in a care home I thought I knew what happened in them; but as I started to dig deeper into the realities of the issues that care workers face daily, I realised I've only ever scratched the surface.

"Covid exposed and accelerated a long-term decline in this country's provision for adult social care, but it’s also given us a chance to do something about it. It’s for our parents now and our children’s futures that we must take this chance to understand more about what's needed and do something before it’s all too late."

Patrick Holland, Director, Factual, Arts and Classical Music Television, says: “Adult social care is one of the most important issues facing us as a society. How we care for our most vulnerable is a question that transcends party politics, asking us to deeply examine our values, priorities and hopes as a society. Ed’s personal and professional experience puts him in a unique position to explore the factors at work in this most complex and urgent of public service debates.”