Home Care Workers
Debate between Simon Hughes and Andrew Smith(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Smith
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and must be reading my mind, because my next sentence was that zero-hours contracts present real problems for continuity of care, which was the point she made. It is important that vulnerable clients in particular have carers whom they know, trust and have built up a relationship with.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for initiating the debate and to Unison, with which I have met, for its initiative. I strongly reinforce the collection of points that he has just made. I have had not only users but care workers troubled by their ability to do their job come to see me. In my experience, such workers are troubled by a combination of not having enough time to look after the person they are caring for and no adequate account being taken of travel time, which means that they are in effect paid below the minimum wage to do a job that they cannot carry out sufficiently and that often there is no continuity of care from a particular individual for a vulnerable, normally elderly person. Those are big issues and I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic to all parties saying such things to the Government. All parties together can change what is a fundamentally flawed system.
Mr Smith
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his support. All those comments are vital, and he is right that throughout Parliament and society at large we can insist on raising standards for workers who are doing a demanding, important and professional job on poverty wages, often in pretty exploitative conditions. That has to be changed.
An example to do with continuity was mentioned in the Care Quality Commission report: a client had 13 different home care workers for 35 calls. In such circumstances, clients have to explain time and time again to different care workers what needs to be done, how they like things and so on. Given that the people receiving home care increasingly have substantial health needs, the whole business of zero-hours contracts is a poor and inappropriate employment model. I do not like it anywhere, but it is especially damaging in this sector.