Scotland's care workers have told the Scottish Government : “If you want to solve Scotland’s NHS crisis, pay us a proper wage.”
They are calling for the proposed National Care Service to pay all care workers £15 an hour to help attract more people to the profession and retain the overworked staff currently in the sector.
There is a huge shortage of care workers and with shelf stacking in supermarkets paying more per hour, attracting people to what can be an extremely stressful and demanding job is proving difficult.
During the pandemic at least one council brought in students to work as care staff but paid them £16 an hour, far more than the experienced workers who were training them.
The lack of care staff is now being felt at the hospital doors.
A staff shortage in social care means there are fewer places for people ready to be discharged from hospital.
This, in turn, means discharges are delayed and beds which could be used for patients coming through A&E are not available.
The result is the queuing ambulances we have seen at the front doors of hospitals because A&Es are backed up.
Care workers also point to the added discrepancies in pay, with all 32 Scottish councils and private sector homes paying different rates for the job which is causing upset to many workers.
The current minimum wage for care workers is £9.50 an hour but the Scottish Government has announced an increase to £10.02 from December. But care worker unions say that is far short of what they need.
Liz Martin is a nurse working in private care and is private care branch secretary with the GMB.
She said: “Most of my members don’t feel valued and feel underpaid.
“A lot of care workers have already left the sector because they don’t get paid enough. They can get more stacking shelves in supermarkets which comes without all the stress and everything else that goes with care.
“And it shouldn’t matter if you are in Inverness or Dumfries, all care workers are doing the same job so they should all get paid the same amount.
“To stop workers leaving and attract more into the profession they need a higher rate of pay and better conditions.
“They all have to register with the Scottish Social Services Council and need to pay an annual fee to remain working in care. If they are paying a professional body, they should be getting paid as professionals.
"The job has changed since I began nursing in private care. The nurse’s role has moved towards paperwork and the carer’s work has moved from a supportive role to a nurse to caring for far more complex needs. It is time they were paid accordingly.”
A consultation on a National Care Service will end on November 2 but Liz said: “The Scottish Government needs to acknowledge that social care has been in crisis long before the pandemic. But no one did anything about it.
“This pandemic highlighted the issues but if the Government wants to fix the problem, they need to listen to us.”
Shona Thomson is the GMB branch convener of Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership and has been a care worker for 20 years.
Currently not a hands-on care worker, she works on behalf of members in Glasgow City Council.
She said: “I cannot understand why all 32 local authorities have different rates of pay for care workers.
“We all have to be registered and have a minimum of an SVQ2 qualification and we all do the exact same job attending to the most vulnerable in society.
“We have been working with this pandemic for 20 months now with the same responsibilities but we are not all getting recognised equally in our pay packets.
"The latest pay award of £10.02 is an insult when social care is a crisis within a crisis. There have been far too many years of chronic exploitation.
“At one point the council brought in social work students and paid them £16 an hour to do home care. They didn’t have a clue what they were doing which put an extra burden on the care worker they were working with.
"The care workers had more responsibility but were earning far less than the students they were training on the job.
“If they can pay students £16 an hour, there should be no argument against paying us £15 an hour.”
GMB Scotland secretary Louise Gilmour said: “If you want to start solving the crisis in social care and the NHS then you must substantially increase care workers’ pay.
“That’s why the prospect of just over £10 an hour for staff simply won’t cut it, and it’s why GMB members are fighting for a £15-an-hour minimum wage.
"Not only would this retain and recruit the people needed to tackle understaffing, but it will also lift the pressure on the NHS too, from quicker hospital discharges to reducing queues at the A&Es.
“After the awful events of the pandemic and with a bleak winter ahead, the consequences of continuing to neglect and undervalue these key workers should be crystal clear to everyone.”
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