WHAT A JOB ADVERT SHOULD LOOK LIKE, CONTINUED ..

Following on from last week’s discussion of a “normal” contract for a home care worker, we need to look at how much such a contact would mean for home care prices.

We got to £19.50 per hour as a pay rate, with a bank holiday rate of £30.

When you add holiday pay, pension and national insurance, you get to £24.40 per hour.

Most local authority visits are commissioned at half an hour. Let’s assume 10 minutes travel time and two miles travel. With good scheduling this is possible, particularly in urban areas. The mileage costs 45p per mile.

So a half hour visit equates to £17.16, or £34.32 per hour at the cost level.

The margin a home care company tries to achieve, to cover sickness, management, training, recruitment and all other office costs, and to provide a return on capital, is normally 30%, taking the total price to £49.03 per hour.

And this assumes that the company manages to schedule the worker perfectly ie that there is no down time.

The UKHCA this year has said that the minimum price for home care should be £21.43 per hour.

They are significantly wide of the mark.