Giving a voice to social care

Chief people officer at Community Integrated Care, Teresa Exelby, argues a National Care Service would create a sense of accountability for the sector and help to provide a fair wage for workers.

“My ideal would be that social care income didn’t go through local government but that there was a National Care Service that took accountability rather than constantly going through different mechanisms and systems,” Exelby told Caring Times in the wake of Community Integrated Care’s ‘Unfair to care’ report in December.

“The inefficiency in that system is enormous and costs a load of money.”

Exelby called for a full system review of social care, but added that people in the sector should be paid properly immediately.

“That’s a much longer-term piece so in the meantime funding does need to go through local authorities and a minimum rate for social care needs to be put in place and they need to be funded to be able to deliver that.”

In the longer term, the chief people officer said that while “not perfect” current plans for a National Care Service in Scotland would create a system that is accountable and establish standards for sector-wide pay and training.

“Exelby called for a full system review of social care, but added that people in the sector should be paid properly immediately.”

“We need some sense of a national system that is end-to-end as opposed to something which is incredibly fragmented,” Exelby said. “It has to be simpler and more efficient and drive better-quality outcomes.

“Pay is at the heart of this but there is so much to do around creating a sector that is aspirational from a career perspective, where progression and promotion is something that is celebrated and where people can have really clear career paths. We are on a constant treadmill of reacting to the crisis in front of us rather than being able to build for the future.”

Community Integrated Care, which helps people with care needs live in the community, as well as providing residential homes for people with learning difficulties and a range of disabilities, currently pays its workers at 50 pence above the minimum wage in Scotland and England.

“We are covering the cost of those rates through our own reserves,” Exelby said. “We made a £3 million deficit last year and probably will look to do the same this year. That isn’t sustainable for a charity.”

Looking ahead, Exelby said Community Integrated Care would continue to campaign for a fair wage for workers on its own behalf or through organisations such as the National Care Forum, the Future Coalition for Social Care or VODG.

“When we hear about people striking for pay, social care is just silent,” Exelby said. “It’s our job to not let it be silent and do all we can to amplify that message.

“We are part of a shared system with the NHS and are partners in that system,” Exelby said. “For that system to work there has to be a level of balance for it to be stable. I don’t see the level of imbalance anywhere else that we currently have.”

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