We are discussing a huge number of new clauses and amendments, and I will try to keep my comments brief to allow Back Benchers on both sides time to speak. I want to start with our new clauses 17 and 18, which deal with the critical issue of linking the quality of care with standards in the care work force. New clause 17 would require the Secretary of State to review the economic and financial factors affecting the employment of care sector workers, including their recruitment, training, employment and retention, and the extent to which the policies of care providers were making it more or less likely that the aims of the Bill were being achieved.
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New clause 18 would ensure that local authorities assessed and considered how the working conditions of people employed in care and support were affecting the ability of councils to fulfil their duties under part 1 of the Bill. This would apply to staff who were directly employed by the councils as well as those working for private and voluntary organisations that councils had
contracted out to. The two new clauses state that if we want to improve the quality of care, we need to take a serious look at what is happening in the care work force, and to assess how people’s pay, terms and conditions and training are impacting on the better provision of care and support that we all want to see.
We know that an increasing number of frail, elderly people are getting home visits that last barely 15 minutes. That does not give the carer enough time to make a cup of tea, never mind get a frail, elderly person up, washed, dressed and fed, particularly if that person has dementia. Anyone who knows someone with dementia will know that mornings are a particularly difficult time for people with that condition. Care staff are being forced to rush from one person to another because of the way the care is commissioned and because of the squeeze on council budgets. According to the United Kingdom Homecare Association, one in 10 visits is now only 15 minutes long, and Leonard Cheshire has found that the proportion of visits lasting that long has risen by 17% over the past five years.
Care workers often do not get the proper training that they need. Camilla Cavendish’s review found that for many staff no minimum educational training requirements had to be met before they started working in social care. She heard from some home care workers whose induction had consisted simply of their being given a DVD to watch before they were sent out to work.
It is estimated that about 300,000 care workers are on zero-hours contracts. Some people might genuinely want to be employed on that basis, but thousands do not, because it makes it virtually impossible for them to budget for themselves and their families, to secure a home—some cannot even afford to rent a home, never mind get on the housing ladder—or to plan their lives. Those arrangements are also not good for the people using the care services: they need to know who is coming to look after them. Imagine having someone different coming in each morning to get you out of bed, take you to the toilet and wash you. You would want to know who was coming in; you would want continuity of care.