Needy must be looked after by the best carers Here's what you think ... changes to homecare services
I REFER to your article Homecare staff hit out over broken promises, Evening Post, July 20.
Do we forget that three years ago, Barbara Janke and Cllr Keilly pulled out all the stops to disband the council's homecare service?
The tremendous outcry at that time derailed the Lib Dem council. Labour took over the council and Labour leader Peter Hammond, rightly stood firm behind the Homecare Service and ensured it continued in existence.
This was a day to remember. It was a day when justice was done, spin exposed and the Lib Dems were ousted.
Now Cllr leader Janke, with a different lieutenant, in the same mould as ex-Cllr Keilly, namely Cllr Jon Rogers, is at it again. Their approach is more devious but their aim remains the same.
They are saying all existing council carers will be protected, all will be offered alternative employment. They do not say the carers will necessarily be offered jobs in caring which is their vocation. They do not promise that these highly trained, experienced people will be able to continue to attend to the most vulnerable and needy people in our community, they do not guarantee even that any new jobs will be protected for more than a limited period.
There is a suggestion that jobs will be found in council run care homes when we all know the council are determined to close down most of their care homes. Where is the security for a carer in that? There is also a suggestion that jobs outside caring will be made available. If you are a dedicated carer with all the necessary qualifications and 20 or 30 years' experience, would you want to become a filing clerk?
Put this point to Cllr Rogers and his answer is: "We have offered you alternative employment, if you don't like it, leave".
With regard to the cost per hour quoted by Cllr Rogers for council carers, this is a ploy to add weight to his argument. What he omits to say is that the £34 an hour includes a huge sum added in to contribute to the overall overheads of running all other council expenditure.
The private sector care services do not have these costs. The actual take home pay of a council carer is £8 an hour, a long way short of what Cllr Rogers would have you believe.
We must keep the highly qualified council-run continuing care at home unit.
The most needy and less able people in our community must be looked after by the most able carers.
I speak myself as a sole carer with many years experience.
Name and address supplied
2 Comments
by stevepunite
Friday, August 26 2011, 11:10AM
“Dr Rogers
Can you please give details in respect of specific efforts or measures taken by you and the senior management team to reduce operating costs in the in-house service.
You concede it is not the wages of the direct servicing staff, as the person with Executive responsibility for some years, it strikes me as extraordinary, that the consequence of YOUR failure to manage, may result in punitive measures affecting only the service users, who desperately want to keep their current Homecares and the staff you employ who are loyal highly skilled reasonably paid employees.
I can testify, as will all of those Homecarers and members of the management team in attendance, that you stated categorically to staff last october, that "80% of existing service users would be retained by the in-house service ongoing. only a minority of staff could be affected and there would be jobs in Elderly People's Homes or STAR to accomodate those who chose not to work in the new dementia care service". That has proven to be false!
You gave an absolute commitment that none of the Homecare staff would lose their jobs, now we know that approximately 130 Homecare staff of the 170 employed last October have no jobs available in Homecare or STAR and uncertainty over their futures. Many of the roles being offered are grossly different and not suitable alternatives.
The unions only became aware of this situation after the June 9th 2011, when the councils cabinet was asked jointly by senior management and the trade unions to clarify what your intentions were, following acceptance of a vague report in the previous October.
By this time you had already initiated assessments of service users and transfer to independent providers.
In some cases your Homecare staff found out when they arrived at service users homes to be told they wwere no longer required, people they had provided persoanl care to for 5, 10 even 20 years, to be told by assessors "you're sacked, a private carer or agency will be providing care from now"”
by CllrJonRogers
Friday, August 12 2011, 10:12AM
“Dear Home Care worker
Thank you for your letter. It allows me to correct a number of misunderstandings.
(1) "Labour leader Peter Hammond, rightly stood firm behind the Homecare Service and ensured it continued in existence"
Labour promised to reduce the cost of the in-house home care service from £32 as it then was to much nearer the cost of the independent sector £16 per hour. They said they would streamline services, reduce sick leave, reduce bureaucracy, reduce down time, and do what they had failed to do in the ten years before, and reduce "in-house" home care costs.
They failed.
Despite the excellent endeavours of many staff, the cost has risen to £36 per hour and is predicted to rise further. In a world where people have their own personal budgets to purchase the services they want, the vast majority of home care service users choose the excellent Bristol independent sector home care services at about £16 per hour.
(2) "take home pay of a council carer is £8 an hour"
The take home pay of our in house council employees is similar to that in the independent sector. It is certainly not the frontline "in-house" home care staff pay that leads to this huge disparity in cost.
(3) "They are saying all existing council carers will be protected, all will be offered alternative employment."
Actually we are not saying that.
What I said to our home care staff at meetings I attended with the then Director of Adult Social Care, David Johnstone last October 2010 was that we needed to make changes to the service.
I said that we needed to merge our STAR Short Term Assessment and Reablement service (which helps keep people out of hospital or care homes, and helps get people back in their homes as soon as possible) with our small in house Home Care service. I say "small" as 80% of all Home Care services are now supplied by the independent sector (at £16 per hour) rather than the 20% that the council employees supply (at £36 per hour).
We did say that we would "try and avoid compulsory redundancies".
We are offering possible voluntary redundacies and some staff are choosing that. Other options include work in an expanded STAR service (doing vital and specialised work), in a new Home Dementia service (filling a gap in current independent service provision), in filling vacancies in our care homes or indeed other options.
Officers, staff and unions have been working together on detailed arrangements since April 2011.
In conclusion, I am determined that the difficult financial situation we find ourselves in does not adversely affect the thousands of vulnerable and elderly residents in Bristol. That does mean we need to reflect on how we best deliver our services and meet the needs of our residents.”