TIME TO VALUE THESE HEROES
NOT many ministers or MPS worked in people’s houses as a home help before working in Parliament.
I’m proud of the work that I did caring for our elders and helping them to live in dignity. It made me who I am today.
The struggles faced by the everyday heroes in our social care sector have become headline news in recent weeks.
But the truth is it was a struggle to work in social care long before coronavirus hit for my old workmates in Stockport and hundreds of thousands of others around the country just like them.
There’s no two ways about it, being a home-help is hard graft.
The work is back-breaking. The hours are long. The wages are little more than poverty pay and many aren’t even paid for travel time between home visits.
Trying to provide the dignity and support vulnerable people need in a 15-minute visit is a daily battle – and it takes its toll.
Praised
Home-helps and care assistants are rightly being praised as heroes now but the truth is they have always been our unsung heroes, the glue that holds our communities together.
So when I see how our social care workers have been so badly let down, I feel angry on their behalf because I know how it feels to walk in their shoes.
More than a month ago, Health Secretary Matt Hancock promised all social care staff and residents would be able to get tested for coronavirus “immediately”.
They are still waiting for this, just like they have waited for proper protective equipment to reach the front line.
Without sufficient testing, how can we be sure the people being discharged from hospital are not carrying coronavirus straight into care homes to cause more devastation and more tragic loss of life?
How can staff know whether or not they are carrying the virus and putting vulnerable residents and their own families at risk?
At PM’S Questions on Wednesday, Labour leader Keir Starmer showed up the Government’s failures when it comes to keeping people in our care homes safe.
Official advice published by the Government on February 25 said it was “very unlikely” those in care homes will get infected.
However, Office for National Statistics figures show that in April there were an additional 18,000 deaths in care homes compared with last April – with at least 8,000 of these recorded as coronavirus deaths.
It is clear that there is a crisis within a crisis in our care homes.
The Government was too slow to get a grip on this, too slow on testing and too slow on protective equipment.
The horrific death rate in our care homes is evidence of that and unless the Government tackles it head on, coronavirus will continue to take lives and cause more heartache for families across the country.
The coronavirus crisis has shone a light on all corners of our society – and what it has revealed is not pretty.
Not only have the social care staff we all applaud on a Thursday night not been provided with the PPE they need to keep themselves, care home residents and their families safe, half of the social care workers we clap every week are not even paid the National Living Wage – never mind a wage that they can actually live on.
Day in, day out, our frontline workers have put their lives on the line to keep the rest of us safe.
They rise to every challenge in protecting us and keeping our country going.
So when we get through this crisis – and we will get through it – let’s commit to building a better society, a society that values our care workers and pays them properly is a good place to start.
When we get through this crisis it will be because of the hard work and bravery of all of the care workers, doctors, nurses, delivery drivers and supermarket workers who have gone above and beyond the call of duty.
We can’t go back to business as usual, where we don’t value the very people who are the backbone of our society.
When I hear the clapping for our carers every Thursday night, I think of my workmates in Stockport getting home exhausted after another 12-hour day. We won’t let you down.