Home care workers demand 15-minute visits ban and end to low pay rates in Northern Ireland

Home care firms are calling for a ban on “inadequate” 15-minute visits for people receiving home care and a halt to “derisory” fee rates of £15 per hour in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland currently has the highest level of 15-minute visits in the UK with over 30 per cent in Northern Ireland compared with 3.5 per cent in England. The high volume of short home care visits has been criticised as far from long enough to meet people’s care needs.

The short visits coupled with “unacceptably low pay rates” of £15 per hour for home care workers” has sparked the ‘15’ campaign which is calling for an end to both practices in Northern Ireland.

‘Enough is enough’

The Independent Health & Care Providers (IHCP) and United Kingdom Homecare Association (UKHCA), which represents over 2, 300 home care providers in the UK, launched the campaign in response to a “woefully inadequate” 34p rise to the hourly home care rate announced by four out of five Health Trusts in Northern Ireland.

The hourly rate rise for home care staff equates to an increase from £15.34 to just £15.68 per hour.

Pauline Shepherd, the chief executive of the IHCP said: "After the announcements of these unacceptable increases to the homecare rates in Northern Ireland, IHCP and UKHCA have jointly decided enough is enough.

"However well-intentioned these increases may have been, they are nowhere near the amount needed to sustain homecare workers in the current climate.”

The UKHCA has calculated that regulated home care that can afford to pay the UK real living wage would cost at least £22.73 per hour for 2021/22.

However, Northern Ireland's fee rate is over £7 per hour below the UKHCA Minimum Price to pay care workers the Real Living Wage.

£15 per hour ‘takes risks with the quality and safety’ of home care

Dr Jane Townson, the chief executive of the UKHCA, said: “A cost-saving approach which requires providers to penny-pinch from all of their budget lines when the starting point is already so low is taking risks with the quality and safety of a regulated service.

“It also risks undermining the ability of providers to improve the working experience of care workers, thereby further destabilising the workforce.”

Councils in England report a planned average hourly rate for homecare in 2021/22 of £18.49 - around £3 more than the amount offered in Northern Ireland but Dr Townson says this is “still glaringly short of the amount required”.

"So, what we are seeing are worrying issues throughout the UK, but most notably for services relied upon by many people and their families in Northern Ireland. Hopefully the Minister for Health does the right thing by intervening and ensuring fairness for all concerned."

As home care providers are demanding fair contracts and fair rates, the Minister for Health, Mr Robin Swann MLA, has said home care workers deserve to be appropriately remunerated for their work. However, home care providers say the Health minister's words “flies in the face of the reality”.

IHCP leader Pauline Shephard added: “These workers showed extraordinary bravery and resilience throughout the pandemic as they continued to put the needs of others before themselves. We are simply asking for fair contracts and fair rates for work which takes a toll on the workers involved."

The IHCP and UKHCA are calling on the public to sign the petition and make the Minister for Health and respective Trust CEOs reconsider their position.

To support the 15 campaign, sign the petition by clicking here