Opinion: It's time to take Care Workers Seriously

Everyone is familiar with the problem of the elderly who need social care having to sell their homes in order to pay for it. And over the past few years we have had endless consultations on how to pay for providing care to the vulnerable in our society at one point the Labour Government had a consultation on what should go into a consultation document!

Yet because the focus seems to be solely on the how we pay for social care this masks many of the other issues relating to social care which are equally worthy of debate and vital if, as a nation, we are to provide the best possible care to those in society who are vulnerable and need the support of society.

One of these issues is the social care workforce. Both the Labour Government and the TUC identified social care workers as vulnerable workers, that is poorly paid and working unsociable hours. Unfortunately these issues have been ignored in the past but deserve to be raised as a part of the wider debate.

Often in the care debate we will hear about Local Authority Directors, Social Workers, or various other roles but rarely are care workers mentioned but, in Kent, they make up 60% of the social care work force and are the people directly responsible for delivering care services.

For some reason Care workers are often compared to retail workers, principally because they fall within the same pay and conditions bracket, but it is an unfair comparison. Care work involves intimate personal care at a level comparable only with care provided by hospitals. Care workers have to undertake such tasks as dealing with incontinence, bathing etc. tasks which are way beyond anything workers in retail have to deal with.

The national average wage for a care assistant in a privately run care home is just £6.30 per hour (according to Skills for Care), the figure for council run services is higher but such services are dwindling rapidly. Yet care workers are constantly bombarded with calls for 'professionalization', to be 'capable and well-trained' or for 'professional registration' all without any hint of reward or increase in salary to recognise the vital role they play in society. It can hardly be a surprise that social care has one of the highest staff turnover rates of any work sector in the country and that at the care assistant level the turnover is as high as 22% as workers move away from the demands of social care to other roles which pay the same but are much less demanding.

If there is to be a real solution to how social care is paid for there is a need to recognise the work done by care workers and the true value of what they should be paid to deliver that service. Yes we need well trained, professional staff to provide care for the most needy in society but how can we honestly expect that level of care unless we a willing to pay the appropriate rate for it.