Political opinion: Workers Party regional spokesperson comments on decision not to give pay rise to home care workers in independent sector
Workers Party regional spokesperson Nicola Grant has commented on the Health Minister's announcement that home care workers in the independent sector will not receive a pay increase.
Ms Grant said it was the responsibility of the independent providers to pay a real living wage as employers.
She said: "This issue once again highlights the reason why home care services were privatised “not to provide a better service but a cheaper one” in order to balance the books.
"Those vulnerable people who rely on the service and those workers who provide it are the real losers. Millions of pounds in public funding is paid to independent providers, but it doesn’t go on staff wages or terms and conditions of service. It goes on profits to the companies their directors and shareholders."
Ms Grant continued: "The Workers Party has been campaigning for well over a decade to bring the home care service back into the health service. Much of the crisis in our hospitals can be traced back to the decision to privatise this vital service.
"Overwhelmed and overflowing emergency departments occur because patients cannot be discharged from hospital and beds become blocked at ward level which permeates throughout the system.
"Because of the lack of home care packages, related to the inability of private providers to recruit and retain staff. Because they are unwilling to pay a real living wage and sufficient terms and conditions of employment. The Workers Party want to see these staff receive proper remuneration for the important work they carry out but have no confidence that any increase to the sector would go towards a living wage for the staff.
"It is right that the minister acknowledges that these staff are providing frontline care for people in their own homes and it is for those reasons that this key service should never have been privatised. Senior management and political parties knew that this was a low wage sector when they handed 80% of the service to independent providers but were unconcerned about the staff “who were and still are predominantly women” because they were working to their own agendas."
She added: "If the minister is really concerned about the plight of these workers he should bring them back into the public sector where they belong. The home care service was once the corner stone of the National Health Service and it should become so again."