Of course the parties should work together to help defeat coronavirus – here’s what they should do first

Congratulations to Sir Keir Starmer on his election as Labour leader, and a qualified welcome for Boris Johnson’s invitation to the leaders of opposition parties to “work together in this moment of national emergency”.

The new leader of the opposition struck the right note in his acceptance speech, offering to engage constructively with the government. And the prime minister was right to invite all parties to a meeting this week “to listen to your views and update you on the measures we have taken” – although the publication of his letter to pre-empt Sir Keir’s speech was somewhat tactical.

Indeed, Sir Keir’s predecessor attended similar briefings, so this is not new. But The Independent hopes that the new Labour leader will raise the opposition’s game. We agree with Sir Keir that, “in times like this, we need good government”, and we believe an effective opposition will improve the quality of government decision-making.

So we welcome Sir Keir’s intention to “test the arguments that are put forward” and to challenge mistakes or “things not happening as quickly as they should”. And we suggest that one of the first subjects to which our new constructive but critical opposition should turn is social care.

As Shaun Lintern, our award-winning health correspondent, reports today, care homes are at risk of collapse within weeks under pressure from the coronavirus outbreak. They face the double challenge of coping with old and vulnerable people at high risk if they contract the virus, while mostly being run by private companies who are struggling with staff shortages and higher costs – all at a time when the focus of public policy is on acute care beds in the NHS.

But care homes are the second tier of the NHS. They have to look after patients being discharged by hospitals in order to create space for coronavirus sufferers. And if they cannot control infections in their often closed environments, they will be sending new coronavirus cases to those hospitals for treatment.

Once care providers start to go bust, the whole sector could become unmanageable, further adding to the pressure on the core NHS.

All of which exposes what is known in medical circles as an “underlying health condition” – namely that social care has been underfunded and neglected for decades, and the price is now being paid. It was never enough simply to rename Matt Hancock’s department “health and social care”. The two systems are disjointed: the NHS run by national departments in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast; social care run by private providers answerable to local councils.

When Sir Keir meets the prime minister this week, we hope he will raise this problem, in a supportive but firm way. It is vitally important that government cash gets through to the social care sector so that it can work with the NHS, rather than against it, in controlling the spread of the virus.