Care home operator wanted staff to repay isolation time

A CARE home operator told workers who self-isolated because of coronavirus that they must work unpaid overtime to cover their time away.

The Priory Group, which provides mental health care facilities and owns more than 230 care homes across the UK, told its care workers in March they would receive full pay while they self-isolated but would then be required to work those hours back unpaid.

Christina McAnea, the Unison union’s assistant general secretary, said: “Care workers self-isolating to stop the spread of the virus are doing the right thing and shouldn’t be penalised.”

The firm said the policy was introduced before the Government announced a £600million fund for homes. In an email seen by The Sunday Tele

graph sent in March the Priory Group, which is owned by US company Acadia Healthcare with revenues of $3.1billion (£2.5billion) last year, told its care workers that if they had to self-isolate then they would receive full pay but would then have to do unpaid overtime over the next 12 months to work this time back. A spokesman for Priory Group said: “Prior to the announcement of the infection control fund, where colleagues needed to self-isolate for two weeks and were only entitled to statutory sick pay in accordance with their contract, we ensured they had the option to receive full pay for this period or could access a loan, both of which could be worked back later as overtime. This decision was taken very early in the pandemic to mitigate financial hardship ... when they needed to self-isolate. The £600million infection

‘Workers self-isolating to stop the spread of the virus are doing the right thing and shouln’t be penalised’

control fund has been allocated to local authorities rather than directly to care providers, and is only available to use for staff self-isolation sickness pay from May 13 onwards. When we receive these funds for any local authority area, any staff self-isolating post-13th May will receive full pay with no requirement to work this back.

“At a time when the care home sector faces unprecedented financial challenges, and several providers face insolvency, our approach has ensured we have made no redundancies, and all our services are sustainable in the longer term.”