I joined with carers from across the country at the Scottish Parliament this weekend to make the case for a £15 an hour minimum wage for all care workers.
A major contributor to the difficulties with recruitment and retention in health and social care is low pay. All carers must be paid the rate for the job and the Scottish Government must act now to introduce a £15 an hour minimum for all care workers if we are to have any chance of addressing this crisis in care.
In Fife we are seeing those who have a care packages being lettered and warned they may have their package reduced and this is causing wide spread worry amongst older and vulnerable Fifers. We have rising numbers of people trapped in hospital due to a failure to provide care packages to get them home and we have unacceptable levels of waiting lists for people who have been assessed as needing home care to support them stay at home. All of this will result in more people ending up in hospital putting even greater pressure on our hospitals which are struggling to cope.
Fife Council, NHS Fife and the Fife Health and Social Care Partnership must set out clear actions they are taking to get more carers into the system but a major block is that carers are not being paid the rate for the job. Most carers are women and traditionally it seems to have been accepted that they can be paid below the rate for the very challenging responsible job they do but this has now backfired and people are going for better pay, terms and conditions with less stressful jobs. So if the Scottish Government are going to help address the difficulties in recruitment and retention they must introduce £15 an hour minimum for all carers.
The Cabinet Secretary for Health Mr Humza Yousaf repeatedly tells us the NHS is in for a difficult winter but fails to set out what the Scottish Government are doing and planning to do to support the frontline services. We do not need sympathetic warnings, we need actions and a decision on the £15 an hour minimum wage for all care workers. If the Government do not act now this situation is going to get even worse.
