Care-at-home companies ‘struggling to stay afloat’

COMPANIES providing care for thousands of people living at home in Wales are struggling to stay in business, it has been revealed

Private domiciliary care businesses provide 13 million hours of care every year in Wales, commissioned by local authorities.

BBC Wales’ Week In, Week Out asked every local authority in Wales if they’d had contracts handed back to them, and 13 out of the 22 which replied said they had.

The programme reveals the increasing pressures companies are under, including a staff recruitment crisis in the face of competition from hospitals and supermarkets.

In Wales the proportion of councils which said they’d had contracts returned was 59%, while the UK average was 48%.

A care company in Gwynedd allowed BBC cameras to follow staff delivering care – to see the kind of pressures they face.

Amanda Hopewell has worked for Cymorth Llaw for three years, and is paid £7.55 an hour, just above the national living wage. Amanda is on a zero-hours contract, which means her hours are not guaranteed. She says she struggles to make ends meet.

“I did look into buying a house about four years ago, but because I didn’t have a contract they wouldn’t allow me,” she said.

“It’s hard, it is hard. You see all your friends out every weekend, going for supper with each other, and you’re like, ‘No, I can’t come.’”

Cymorth Llaw has provided domiciliary care in north Wales for 17 years, and company boss Ken Hogg says it’s getting more and more challenging. Although he says his company is not in danger of going bust, profits have been falling.

“There will be difficult decisions to be made,” he said.

“We have to stop this crisis in social care and we have to make these professional carers feel valued [with] the remuneration that they deserve.”

Last year, the company pulled out of providing care in Conwy, which paid £14.20 an hour for care. Conwy council offered to increase that to £15, but the company handed back its contract. “We didn’t think that we could provide this level of service for that money,” said Mr Hogg.

Steve Thomas, chief executive of the Welsh Local Government Association, says local authorities need more money to be able to pay carers better.

The UK Government has announced an extra £2 bn over three years for social care in England. In Wales, there is an extra £200m – but the Welsh Government has yet to decide how to spend the money.

Rebecca Evans, Social Services and Public Health minister, said the introduction of a registration scheme for domiciliary care workers in 2020 would help.

Week In, Week Out: The Real Cost of Caring, today, BBC One Wales, 10.40pm.