Is care at home now set to start changing for better?

INVERCLYDE Council has signed up to an ethical care pledge, which will change the way it commissions and runs care provided to people living at home.

The council has signed Unison’s Ethical Care Charter, and the union hopes to get many more local authorities signed up to the commitment.

It asks them to undertake to ditch zero hours contracts and try to ensure people see the same home care worker wherever possible. It allows workers to spend the time they need with clients, rather than forcing them to limit visits. It also commits to paying staff the living wage andprovideasickpay scheme.

Unison says the Scottish Government’s demand for a living wage for care workers means councils are now more willing and able to accept the rest of the charter.

An end to the culture of 15-minute visits seems fundamental to me to ensuring care at home works at all.

It is understandable that councils, most perilously cash-strapped and under constant pressure from central Government and the public alike to spend less, respond to the need to make services more efficient. But the idea that meaningful care could be provided in visits barely long enough to boil a kettle, often from a revolving cast of strangers, has always been a dead end.

Its effect is far-reaching. It doesn’t just make a proper visit impossible. It changes the nature of care and the care workforce. Those who feel they didn’t come into care work to dash into a house, fulful at task such as getting someone out of bed, and leaving without even time for a chat, may choose to do something more fulfilling. Does this encourage the care workforce we want?

Meanwhile, the elderly or disabled people receiving the care learn not to ask for extra help, or reach out to discuss a niggling problem or concern.

Several of the new integrated joint boards (IJBs) set up to coordinate health and social care are considering Unison’s charter too. Their budgets are under significant pressure.

But it does seem as if there is a shift happening towards making care a better valued role, and if more councils and IJBs sign up to Unison’s charter that would be a powerful symbol of that improvement.