IS THE WORM TURNING?

There are some signs that more money is, at last, going into home care.

The sector has been under-funded for decades.

As we have discussed previously, the prices paid by local authorities are no way near sufficient.

The UKHCA suggested price is £21.43 per hour.

Our calculations suggested £17.16 would be a reasonable price for half an hour, or £31.32 per hour.

And yet there are local authorities paying around £16 per hour, for all days and times.

Since the pandemic, however, central government has paid local authorities some significant amounts to bolster social care.

And this is beginning to seep down to the home care sector.

There have been one-off grants to cover extra Covid costs. Whilst welcome, these won’t address the recruitment problem.

More encouragingly, one local authority has recently awarded not one but two interim price rises.

We have of course passed this on immediately as pay rises for staff.

Let’s see what happens in April when the annual price rise falls.