More Funding Needed In Care Sector
GMB Support Call By Care Employers For Adequate Funding To Pay Living Wage And Provide High Quality Care
If the money from corporation tax cuts and uncollected taxes on property incomes ending up in tax havens went into social care the country could start looking itself in the mirror again says GMB.
GMB, the union for care staff, commented on the Open Letter to Chancellor of the Exchequer on National Living Wage from the UK Home Care Association. See notes to editors for copy of the open letter dated 27 July 2015.
Justin Bowden, GMB National Officer, said “The dire warning from the care sector comes as no surprise to GMB.
The crisis in care is not the result of the rates of pay staff receive. It is the product of chronic underfunding by successive governments and society's failure to face up to its responsibility to care for those who paid tax and national insurance all their lives in their times of need.
GMB has been warning of the crisis in care since before the collapse of Southern Cross in 2011. Something is badly wrong with society's priorities, when the important job of stacking shelves in a supermarket is valued more highly than the vital job of caring for our elderly and vulnerable. "
We repeat it is not the living wage that is the problem it is the total lack of proper funding to ensure high quality care is available. It is high time for all of us to face up to the real cost of caring for the ones we love and for ourselves in later life.
If the money being thrown at corporation tax cuts and uncollected taxes on property incomes going to tax havens went into social care the country could start looking itself in the mirror again. We need action from the Chancellor on this.”
