Move to neighbourhood-based homecare paves way for fair pay
What has been announced?
The Minister for Care has announced that local authorities will be tasked with arranging homecare in a smaller geographical areas or ‘neighbourhood’ patches, paving the way for fair, shift-based pay for homecare workers.
Each homecare worker will visit homes in a designated neighbourhood to put an end to the current situation whereby workers criss-cross inefficiently over large areas. The announcement refers to a trial led by AI Dimension in Bristol which: "found that reorganising existing visits into geographical zones could potentially deliver the same care with 35% less staff time and 65% less driving".
What could be the broader impact for homecare workers?
A core component of the approach recommended by AI Dimension is fair shift-based pay, whereby workers are paid continuously from the start of the first care visits in a run to the end of the last, facilitated by the efficiencies gained via a neighbourhood-based approach to homecare. This would mark a long-awaited change to the prevailing contact-time-only pay model as defined by misleadingly high hourly wages, significant amounts of unpaid travel, waiting and training time and a high risk of National Minimum Wage underpayment. Any move to shift-based pay should be accompanied by a mandatory mileage rate for all homecare workers since insufficent mileage reimbursement is another major feature driving illegally low pay in homecare.
Note that another aspect of this major proposed change will involve local authorities commissioning a smaller number of homecare providers per geographic patch, which in the short-term may lead to disruption to care packages and jobs whilst local authority-funded care is consolidated under a smaller number of homecare providers.
When should things start to change?
The announcement from the government Department of Health & Social Care makes clear that the people responsible for implementing this move to neighbourhood-based homecare will be commissioners of adult social care at each local authority:
"Councils will be encouraged to commission home care across smaller geographical areas, with one or two main providers serving each neighbourhood. New guidance and toolkits will be published in the Spring to support local authorities move to neighbourhood-based models of home care commissioning. The government will work with local authorities over the coming months to track and support their progress."
This means there is no hard and fast date for change and that things are likely to move at varying paces depending on where you live. Homecare Voices sits on the National Steering Group of the DHSC project that is leading the development of the guidance and toolkits for local authorities.
What else could be done to improve the situation in homecare?
Homecare Voices has published recommendations for government, local authorities and employers about how to take the next steps to fixing the foundations of pay in homecare in the interest of both workers and the people we support. You can view these here.
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