Andy Burnham calls for better pay for care workers

Social care workers who look after older and disabled people have had a raw deal under successive governments and should be paid more and given greater status, says the health secretary, Andy Burnham.

Pressure on social care budgets has kept down pay rates and undermined the quality of care given to some of the most vulnerable citizens, admits the minister, whose grandmother was the victim of theft in a care home.

In an interview with the Guardian, Burnham says: “I have to be honest and say I actually think the social care workforce is in many ways underpaid for the job they do.

“What we have learned in the health service is that well-rewarded and motivated staff lead to happy patients, and that same principle should apply to social care.”

An estimated 1.4 million people work in social care, more than in the NHS. The typical pay rate is just over £6.50 an hour but more than a third of the workforce, including many staff in residential homes, earn little more than the national minimum wage of £5.73. Turnover of staff is about 30% a year.

Care home owners maintain that they would like to pay higher rates but are unable to do so because the fees paid by local authorities for state-supported residents are too low – often lower than the costs of care and accommodation.

Martin Green, chief executive of the English Community Care Association, which represents the leading care home chains, welcomed Burnham’s acknowledgment of a problem.

“This government has attempted to do something about redefining the status of social care work, but one of the things it has missed completely is that status is linked to poor pay,” Green said. “Because it is low pay, people think it is low status.

“It’s the old cliche: why would you want to deliver highly complex social care services, interacting with people and deploying a range of different skills, when you could earn the same for stacking shelves in Sainsbury’s and walk away from the job at the end of each day?”

Burnham says he has felt passionately about social care especially since his late grandmother’s experience in a care home, where she was the victim of “petty theft” including, he claims, having her engagement ring taken from her finger.

“We don’t have the systems and processes that properly reward staff and stop that kind of thing happening,” he says. “Pressure on social care budgets had led to a position, over time, where the quality in some parts isn’t there.”

The minister is leading a consultation on the government’s green paper on reform of care and support, setting out options for bringing more money into the system through social insurance schemes and transfer of benefits cash.

Declaring his intention to make it a “top-order” issue at the general election, Burnham says: “I think the time has come for the country to be offered a big choice about this issue. I don’t think it serves the public interest for this to be avoided any longer.”