The nation’s care workers are getting a raw deal and have been for some years now. This has been highlighted by many including our own party’s Health and Social Care Working Group. In ten years overseeing the care of someone in need of help I saw at first hand the reality of life for those at the sharp end. What I witnessed was nothing short of a scandal.
Workers paid just the minimum wage, expected to do extradinarily long shifts which took no account of working time regulations, travel time unpaid, breaks if they actually had them spent doing paperwork and a chronic lack of the right equipment to do their job.
This is bad enough but the private care companies employing these workers were doing it on contract in a town which in my case was run by a Labour council. A council that had no interest in addressing the abuses that I highlighted to them. The unions were no better, Unison the union for care workers seemed content to remain in their comfort zone representing those directly employed by the local authority at the same time enjoying a cosy relationship with the Labour leadership. I never witnessed any attempt by Unison to recruit let alone organise the care workers employed by private companies.
We simply can’t trust Labour on this and hell will freeze over before the Tories do anything to help working people. As Liberals with a proud history of fighting for workers, whether they are in a union or not, we can come up with proposals to improve things in the care sector. Personally, I would like to see the profit motive taken out of care with the creation of a National Health and Care Service where all people working in the organisation including care workers are directly employed by the state – a return to the position that existed before Thatcher privatised care in 1989.
I do however recognise that this is a major change, and it might be a bit to radical for some, but Governments can regulate pay and conditions in the private sector, the Agricultural Wages Board, which existed long before the introduction of the national minimum wage, being a good example. Similarly, the body for those currently employed in the prison service. I would like to see something like that for the care industry.
Some might say this task could be performed by the existing regulator the Care Quality Commission but sadly they have proved to be a total failure as an inspectorate, being most famous for having given good quality ratings to establishments that have been exposed by undercover media investigators as seriously failing the vulnerable people they are supposed to be looking after.
So how about it? A Care Workers Pay and Conditions body supported by inspectors that sets national standards for all those working in the industry. Looking after the care workers is the right thing to do and also means the vulnerable people they look after will have better lives too.
Let it be the Liberals who come to the rescue of this important group.
This article is dedicated to all the amazing home and residential care workers across the UK.
* David is a member of Horsham and Crawley Liberal Democrats