Care homes demand cash for ‘golden hellos’
Faced with a serious staff shortage, industry leaders are calling for a cash injection to entice recruits
Care homes are asking the Government for millions of pounds in extra funds for “golden hellos” amid a staffing crisis. Care home managers have asked the Health Secretary for more cash to entice tens of thousands of recruits, The Daily Telegraph understands. “A golden hello would only be a sticking plaster, but that’s how desperate the situation is,” a source said. Some care homes have begun offering joining bonuses of up to £250.
CARE homes are asking the Government for millions of pounds in extra funds to give recruits “golden hellos” amid a staffing crisis.
The Daily Telegraph understands that care home managers have asked Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, for more cash to entice tens-of-thousands of recruits.
Some care homes have even started offering joining bonuses of up to £250 as well as referral bonuses of £350 because they are so desperate for staff as the sector attempts to plug a shortage of 40,000 carers. On Aug 17, Care England – the largest representative body for residential care in the country – wrote to Mr Javid, highlighting concerns over “reward and pay” in the adult social care sector, and calling for an extension to the Workforce Capacity Fund. The £120 million fund was unveiled by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) in January – and expired in March. It aimed to support local authorities with staffing capacities in care homes throughout the pandemic.
The Telegraph understands that one of the aims in calling for the fund to be extended is to offer potential new recruits “golden hellos”.
“We’ve got weeks, not months,” a source close to the communication between the care sector and the Government told this newspaper.
“A golden hello would only be a sticking plaster, but that’s how desperate the situation is.” Mike Padgham, the chairman of the Independent Care Group for York and North Yorkshire and owner of St Cecilia’s Care Services, which operates four care businesses, said that he was already offering bonuses to new joiners because he was desperate for staff. He is offering £250 “golden hellos” to starters, and £350 for those who successfully refer a friend “as a way to try to attract more people”.
“We’d want to offer more, but that’s as far as we can go … if the Government could pay for these golden hellos, that would help us enormously.”
His comments come as the Independent
Care Group warned that volunteers may be required to plug the staffing shortage in care homes this winter.
It is leading calls for retired nurses, doctors and carers to be trained and Dbs-checked to fill vacancies in case of a feared “winter meltdown” in staff numbers.
Yesterday The Telegraph revealed that six in 10 care homes say they will be forced to sack members of staff who are refusing to get vaccinated ahead of the Government deadline on Sept 16.
The Government has previously estimated that its mandatory vaccination policy will result in about 40,000 care home staff – 7 per cent – either quitting or being sacked, costing the embattled sector £100 million to replace them.
According to the latest available data, funded by the (DHSC) and published by Skills for Care last October, there were 112,000 vacancies in the sector. However, industry leaders warn that in the past year, as the pandemic has ravaged care homes – causing more than 40,000 deaths of residents – this number is likely to have risen and be far higher. Some even suggest that vacancies may have doubled.
Prof Martin Green, the chief executive of Care England, said: “It is important to bear in mind that local authorities have a statutory responsibility for continuity of service and care, therefore they need to be proactively engaging with the care homes in their localities to ensure that they are offering as much help as possible.
“We have long called for a 10-year workforce plan akin to that in the NHS, and now is crunch time in order that we have proper long-lasting solutions rather than sticking plasters.”
The DHSC was approached for comment.
‘A golden hello would only be a sticking plaster, but that’s how desperate the situation is’
Once again, it seems that the care home sector is to take the blame for inadequacies in the NHS. A key reason why Covid swept through care homes last year, accounting for nearly 40,000 excess deaths, was the decision early in the pandemic to discharge elderly patients from hospital into care homes; many took the virus with them, with fatal consequences.
Now the Government has announced that all care home staff must be fully vaccinated by November 11, having their first dose by the middle of next month. The Care Quality Commission will have powers to enforce the requirement, their expectation being that staff who decline the vaccine will be dismissed, unless they can demonstrate that they are exempt. Surprisingly, however, the requirement is not applicable to hospital staff, who can continue to work in the NHS without being vaccinated. Why the disparity?
The Government has justified its decision for care home workers on the basis that vaccination offers protection against infection for staff and residents. While recent evidence shows that being vaccinated does not prevent people from passing Covid on, it does reduce the risk of being infected in the first place. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to argue that those working in close proximity to the elderly should have the jab.
For some care home owners, the ability to make vaccination a condition of employment will be welcome, and ministers should certainly make clear that the law will protect them from being sued on these grounds.
But a survey of managers has shown that six in 10 care homes are more worried about losing staff, a significant problem in a sector struggling with labour shortages. They argue that they should not be forced to sack employees who are reluctant to be vaccinated, as they are tested daily and comply with other requirements for virus control. Losing these staff may pose a threat to the home’s quality of care, or even force its closure.
If vaccination is considered so important for care staff, why is it not equally necessary for NHS employees? We know that thousands of patients have caught Covid while in hospital. Control of infection has been at least as big a problem for hospitals as it was for care homes. Surely the sick deserve as much protection as the elderly?
When mandatory vaccination was mooted this year, the Government appeared to be working on that assumption; it was announced that mandatory jabs would apply to NHS staff, as well as those working in care homes.
But the ensuing consultation has caused the Government to change course. Both the BMA and the Royal College of Nursing spoke out against the legal and ethical implications of insisting on jabs. Describing enforcement as a “blunt instrument”, they made clear their preference to encourage and inform, fearful that making jabs mandatory would only inflame vaccine scepticism.
It seems the louder voices of the health unions won the day, and the care sector must accept a requirement that medical leaders found unacceptable. Yet the rates of vaccine hesitancy in the two sectors are remarkably similar: according to the most recent figures, 90 per cent of NHS staff have had their jabs compared with 87 per cent of care home workers. It is hard to escape the conclusion that care homes are being made the scapegoat for government failings, while the NHS, as ever, goes unchallenged.