Care workers 'face poverty' on low sick pay

Unison is calling on Bristol City Council to improve pay and conditions in care homes

A trade union boss has warned that some care workers could be making elderly and disabled people ill because they cannot afford to take time off work.

Unison is calling on Bristol City Council to improve pay and conditions in care homes across the city, as it said a third of shifts were left vacant.

Area organiser for the trade union, Steve Mills, urged councillors at an adult social care policy committee meeting last week, to increase both wages and sick pay.

The government said it planned to strengthen Statutory Sick Pay while Bristol City Council said it encouraged organisations to have the correct standards in place "to maximise employee and contractor wellbeing."

Statutory sick pay is currently £116.75 and is the minimum amount employers must pay, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Mr Mills wants the city council to pay workers more than the baseline amount.

He told the committee: "Sick pay is an issue because of cross-contamination.

"People are coming in when they’re unwell and affecting the service users and their fellow colleagues.

"The reason for that is they really cannot survive on statutory sick pay.”

Statutory sick pay is currently £116.75, which Mr Mills said is, for many people, too little to cover basic bills.

Mr Mills added: “It won’t even cover people’s rent.

"If they’re sick, through no fault of their own, they’re literally facing poverty and debt."

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson said: “No one should be forced to choose between their health and financial hardship, which is why we plan to strengthen Statutory Sick Pay so it provides a safety net for those who need it most.”

'Backfill vacancies'

Most care services in Bristol are now outsourced to private companies, but the council still plays a major role in contracting the services out.

Since the UK left the European Union, care homes across the country have struggled to hire and retain enough staff, Unison said.

This leaves care homes relying on agency workers, while the few staff who remain are often just paid statutory sick pay.

Mr Mills told councillors that in some settings there are vacancy rates of 30 to 40%, with service providers left to back fill the vacancies with "expensive agency staff".

He added that care staff see that agency workers are "getting paid better and don’t have so many stressful strains, so they leave the service to come back as an agency worker".

'Baseline standards'

He said that the council should improve its "baseline standards" to help combat the problem.

These are what organisations have to provide to get funding or contracts with Bristol City Council, including pay and conditions.

In response, a council spokesperson said: "When outsourcing to companies, we would want to see that organisations are as committed and therefore align to our vision.

“Bristol City Council has been a Living Wage employer since 2018, and as part of our role in seeking to make Bristol a Living Wage City, we strongly encourage all organisations to commit to paying the real Living Wage, which benefits people’s physical and mental wellbeing and reduces in-work poverty.”