Keep Bristol Council's Home Care Service!

Bristol slated in Demos research for cuts to front line social care services

2011-09-14T14:45:00.000+01:00

Demos has just produced a disability cuts map of all UK local authorities. Bristol City Council is rated in the worst category group of local authorities and ranks 147th out of 152 local authorities. The reason for the authorities exceptionally poor performance in this league table is its inability to protect front line services from budget cuts. The Demos verdict on Bristol:
Cuts Level: Very High
Coping Level: Very Bad

See for yourself at http://disability-cuts-map.demos.co.uk/local-authority/bristol/

Update - the care, no sorry, CAR Boot Sale Banner at Amerind Grove has disappeared!!

2011-09-14T12:32:00.000+01:00

Yesterday's blog mentioned that BUPA's Amerind Grove Nursing Home promoted itself as a car boot sale venue with an enormous banner outside its front gates. After a damning CQC report in March 2011, BUPA managers and Bristol City Council chiefs had assured residents and local people its care standards would improve. Seeing a car boot sale banner, along with many long hours, minimum wage job ads for untrained care workers at Amerind Grove raised concerns that quality care might not be as genuinely valued as claimed.

This morning . . . the banner has gone, disappeared, it is no more!

. . . it would be great if staff receive a pay rise just as swiftly

On Homecare - politicians not brave enough to confront the truth

2011-09-13T17:28:00.001+01:00

A perfect storm is a term used to describe a situation where a range of negative circumstances come together all at once. It is a term perhaps appropriate for Bristol City Council's Lib Dem plan to privatise its homecare service. In combination, the factors detailed below show how an already dire situation will be made far, far worse if the privatisation goes ahead.

1. Instability in Private Sector Businesses and Public Sector Cut Backs

Companies who run residential homes are laden down with debt at a time of drastic local authority budget cuts. Cut backs have reduced the number of care home beds that Councils book for respite care. Councils are imposing lower prices be paid 'per bed' and the number of residential home companies going bust is at an all time high.

Council's are shifting their focus away from residential homes towards providing homecare support as an alternative. This policy has been in operation for over a decade, widely supported by organisations who represent older people's interests and applaud efforts to keep people in their own homes for as long as possible. However, the ethics which underpinned the policy move towards at-home support have now been replaced by an urgent desperation to cut costs.

Last week, a Bristol job centre was advertising a full time homecare job for £100 a week. This is during the same week when the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services described the system in place for providing adult social care as 'bust'. Three quarters of all Homecare workers in the private sector have NO guaranteed hours of work. They work on zero hours contracts and their weekly income is unstable. They are routinely bullied into working long hours. Many private sector homecare jobs are advertised as paying £7.50 - £8.50 an hour but the pay packet that workers end up with rewards them with much less than that. Because they are only paid for the minutes they spend in a service users home, a twelve hour shift can produce only seven or eight hours pay. Unsurprisingly, many are struggling with personal debt problems. At least 10% of jobs in social care pay less than the national minimum wage. Abuse of their employment rights is commonplace.

These workers deal with the most intimate aspects of people's lives, bodies and personal finances. Treating care workers badly does the service users no favours whatsoever. When CareMark Bristol went bust recently, it was the Council's own Homecare Service that stepped in to ensure that service users were not left stranded. This is not an isolated incident.

The UK Homecare Association has reported big safety concerns for service users and homecare workers. Adult social care is in a massive mess across the country. Homecare, as a solution for looking after older vulnerable people, is coming under more and more pressure. Care homes are closing down, either because they are mired in disgrace for abusing those they are supposed to care for, or no longer financially viable to maintain, or because Councils are turning to homecare as a much cheaper alternative.

2. Loss of Public Confidence in Private Care

There has been a massive loss of confidence in private sector care provision and Bristol has been in the public spotlight. The potential to accumulate great wealth from running a private care business was clear from the lavish wedding celebrations shown in the C4 Dispatches programme about the Dewani family, well known in Bristol for their impressive business acumen in the care sector. However, scenes of abuse at Bristol's Winterbourne View (nothing to do with Dewani and run by Castlebeck) were broadcast to the nation on Panorama. What we witnessed as viewers was reminiscent of the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Soon, the care workers exposed will face trial at Bristol Crown Court. They will have the opportunity to explain themselves, the criminal charges against them are very serious. The national media will be camped outside Bristol’s Court on Small Street. The directors of the company concerned remain in their jobs and, so far as I am aware, may have been disgraced in the court of public opinion but they face no personal criminal investigation. Castlebeck is still in business.

It’s only a few weeks since staff at Bristol's Rose Villa were investigated on allegations of abuse - the home's owners decided to shut it down rather than contemplate any potential remedies for institutional malpractice. Bristol's Amerind Grove Nursing Home, a big home in the City which has nearly 200 beds, received a terrible inspection report in March 2011. They were found to have failed on 11 essential standards for which they have a direct responsibility in law to maintain. It was found that residents had suffered 'pain and injury', their 'right to safe care' had not been protected, they were 'frustrated, ignored and upset'. Staff had not received any training in dementia care or the Mental Capacity Act, were inexperienced, in a rush and not 'always competent'.

Amerind Grove is run by an organisation that the public would not necessarily think of as a bunch of uncaring, money grabbing spivs, but by BUPA. BUPA trades on its reputation as a not for profit organisation which exists for the benefit of its members. Mark Elliott, Regional Director of Bupa Care Services said of Amerind Grove that since the inspection, ‘significant improvements’ were made immediately, the home now has a 'professional team' delivering 'the highest possible standards of care.’

Councillor Jon Rogers, the politician at Bristol City Council responsible for Health and Social Care confirmed BUPA's story to the local newspaper and added that Amerind Grove is now: ‘a more effective home, staffed with trained carers who show real pride in the valuable job they do.'

Two weeks ago, I just happened to pass Amerind Grove Nursing Home. I was struck by the BANNER ADVERTISEMENT across the entrance to the Home promoting A CAR BOOT SALE TO BE HELD IN THEIR GROUNDS. Unimpressed, it did not scream out to me that they were desperate to gain respect for offering the highest possible standards of care.

I have also noticed that the adverts at the job centre which offer not a penny more than minimum wage of £5.93 an hour to work in a care home are at, you guessed it, Amerind Grove. Since no experience is required for these jobs, it puts pay to the 'trained carers' explanation. As for the, 'pride in the valuable job they do', dreams of Cllr Rogers . . . dream on. Amerind Grove could not legally demonstrate any lower valuation of these jobs than £5.93 and in three weeks time this value will become unlawful because the national minimum wage increases to £6.08. Perhaps BUPA will now have to offer a children’s face painting service during October half term to boost attendance at the car booters?

In 2009, Sunnymead Manor Residential Home in Southmead, owned and operated by Mimosa Healthcare, was exposed for poor care standards. The then Executive Member for Health and Social Care at Bristol City Council attempted to reassure the public by making a personal visit to the home. Her inspection was so rigorous that she offered the local newspaper this breathtaking line: ‘we spoke to quite a number of residents and they seem contented enough.’ It took until the following year, for the facts to surface again. In November 2010 a member of staff blew the whistle on Mimosa for disgusting conditions, poor care, lack of attention, poor infection control and dirty facilities at Sunnymead. In December 2010, the same company issued a public apology for appalling care standards at another of their homes, Kingsmead Lodge, in Shirehampton, Bristol.

In May 2010, June Davies was convicted in Bristol Crown Court of abusing a resident in her care at the Honeymead Care Home in Bedminster. Two weeks ago, Kirsty Green was sentenced at Bristol Crown Court for stealing £46,000 from a bedridden older person in her care. Kirsty worked for Stepping Stones Homecare, as did Jane Hoy who was convicted for the same offence a year before.

Before you jump to many conclusions about the wickedness of care workers, it is worth pondering for a moment that both Bristol City Council and the Care Quality Commission regulate these outfits. If you feel sickened by stories of older people being abused or are cross about companies that fail to provide the care they are paid for, you should also be asking questions about regulation.

3. A crisis in regulation

In a race to the bottom, the system of private sector care regulation has been watered down by successive governments. Last week, members of the UK Care Homes Association decided they no longer had confidence in the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The Royal College of Nurses are currently surveying their members about similar concerns.

Today, it is reported in Community Care Magazine, that the CQC are, yet again, reducing their regulation. This time they are reducing not the frequency, but the scope of what they decide to inspect. There are 16 quality standards and providers will now only be tested on a few of them.

Their approach to regulation from now on will 'assume' providers comply with these standards and only look further if there is evidence they might not. This means that providers will not have to demonstrate that they meet the standards, the inspectors will simply assume they do unless they see evidence indicating otherwise. As things stand, businesses providing social care are regulated ONCE EVERY TWO YEARS. That is how 'light touch' the regulation is.

Further, in June 2011 the CQC disclosed it is so short of staff that it is carrying 128 vacancies for inspectors. Despite the continual massive shift in provision away from care services which are owned and run ‘by the public, for the public’ towards the private sector, the CQC runs on a budget which is 65% of what regulation cost back in 2006.

In the six months between October 2009 and March 2010 the CQC carried out 6,840 inspections. Between October 2010 and March 2011 the CQC carried out only 2,008 inspections. The number of inspections had fallen by 70% in just a year. In October 2010, the system of rating providers with an inspection star score (one star, two star, three star) was abolished. The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services said this was a dangerous move which would reduce the safety of older people receiving services.

The alleged purpose of this weak system of regulation is to reduce 'bureaucracy' and increase local accountability. It is intended that Councils should produce ‘local accounts’ on the standard of services in their areas and be held to account by user-led groups and local people.

A conclusion - brave enough to confront some truths?

Bristol City Council plans to privatise what remains of its Homecare service in the eye of this 'perfect storm'. On average last year, Councils across the UK cut back on the number of Homecare Assistants they directly employed because they preferred to buy more cheaply from the private sector. The proportion of services provided directly by Councils fell to 16%.

Bristol currently has 15% of its homecare provision delivered by its own in-house team of Homecare Assistants. However, it is putting these women out of work, despite them being the most well qualified, experienced and necessary team of care workers in the City. Bristol City Council’s own homecare workers are either being forced to accept a supposedly ‘voluntary redundancy’ package (which may not even materialise) or they are being asked to accept other work in the Council. This 'other work' is often totally inappropriate for them or is with Council services which are facing imminent closure, like residential homes. Homecare Assistants since August have been facing up to the distress of going to out work, only to find their service users have been taken away. The people they care for, in some cases for many years, are handed over to private agencies whilst the Council carers themselves are sent back home with no more work to do.

Right across the UK, Councils are putting pressure on private providers to continually reduce costs and Bristol is no different. This is achieved by reducing pay, watering down on regulation, turning a blind eye to poor quality provision, and expecting workers and service users to tolerate an ever higher risk of danger. Bristol certainly does not have a glorious reputation for regulating the private sector. The evidence speaks to the fact that it does not, and perhaps can never, ensure that only good quality private sector care is provided for taxpayers money.

It is perhaps unfortunate for Bristol to be singled out, but it is nevertheless a fact that Bristol has come under the national spotlight for care failure.

Lib Dem politicians at Bristol are woefully ignorant about the reasons why their own Homecare Service costs more than the private sector. They are also astonishingly naïve and out of date in their understandings of the employment terms and conditions of their own workforce. They are acting outside of the law in refusing to consult with trade unions about redundancies and not undertaking an Equalities Impact Assessment. They engage in warm words and platitudes when serious failures in care standards are uncovered.

This happens because it is precisely in their interests for the care companies to keep going, to keep on providing cheap care and for no-one to ask any awkward questions. Indeed when awkward questions were asked by Conservative Councillors at the Full Council meeting of 6th September, the Lib Dem response was to repeat falsehoods and misinformation. Who can blame them really? It worked. The Conservatives changed their minds about voting against the privatisation plans.

The idea that local people can hold private care providers to account is astonishing. Our elected Councillors rarely know what they are talking about on Adult Social Care. It is not in their interests for local people to be any the wiser.

One thing that ALL politicians in Bristol do know however is that people in our City do not want Homecare to be further privatised. All politicians know that with a certainty. They shudder at the prospect of being in the unfortunate position of having to carry the can for unpopular decisions.

The Lib Dems know they lost the 8th September by-election in Southmead over the privatisation issue. The Conservatives and Labour also know they picked up votes because both parties told voters they would fight to keep the in-house service. The Lib Dems leader herself has said as a result of the defeat that they ‘are listening to local people’.

Well if you are listening, listen to this. When looking into the eye of a storm in which older people are subjected to ever increasing risk and care workers are regarded as expendable fodder, nobody wants a coward to represent them. Privatising your own homecare service is far from a brave political decision. It is a decision taken in ignorance, irresponsibility, and with a cavalier disregard for what is actually taking place underneath your own noses.

If you do not have the courage to act as people who elect you require, if you do not have the courage to face up to hard truths which include your own ignorance, if you are simply not brave enough to confront the truth – you should stand aside.

Today, Dr Rogers, IT IS 'SATURDAY'!

2011-09-10T13:00:00.000+01:00

Dear Dr Rogers

No matter how many times you say it differently, today remains a Saturday. I’m not suggesting you attempt to deceive about the name of today, more that you might not know. Your 'not-knowing what day of the week it is' might cause you to go to Church, or take your kids to school, or do other things not normally associated with a Saturday. If I could alert you to the true day of the week, what you were doing ought to change.

Homecare staff are NOT, as you comment in response to a previous post, paid double-time to work on Sundays. This error reveals potentially significant flaws in your approach to Homecare. Either:

a) you don’t know what your staff are paid so you make a wild guess, because you’re a doctor and hey, that makes you pretty smart and authoritative.

b) you do know what your staff are paid but you chose to tell lies in order to ratchet up anti-public-sector propaganda to justify privatisation

c) someone told you what your staff are paid, you don’t know any different, so you just repeated it because you thought it was true

And, because that I am reluctant to believe either a) or b), please be assured that today really is Saturday, Homecare staff don’t get double time for weekend working and you should not take your kids to school today because you’ll look a fool.*

* Of course I realise that your children might go to private school, so there’s a chance they have school on a Saturday morning, but that’s not really my point

Caring is a Civic Duty - and other nuggets

2011-09-09T17:42:00.000+01:00

Ive been asked to post a couple of letters which have appeared in the local press and comments on websites so that you all can see them in one place, so here goes:

Caring is a civic duty, not about making a profit

COUNCILLOR Rogers is once again in your newspaper putting forward his statistics to make a case for closing our Homecare service. He conjures up from nowhere "hundreds" of people who he says support his arguments. Firstly, that care from the private sector is equal to the in-house council care service.

Consider the profile of a private sector carer. I have much personal experience and up-to-date knowledge from indisputable sources. The private sector carer works for an employer who is in the business of caring to make a profit. This is the nub of their problem. The employer must take on the cheapest labour they can find. They must get in and out of their clients' home as quickly as to get on to the next one and the next one. The cheapest labour available at present is young women from ethnic backgrounds. The problem this causes is that many cannot communicate fully with elderly people who often have difficulty making themselves understood in normal circumstances. This lack of communication contributes highly to an inferior service.

There is a very high turnover of private sector carers. It is an arduous job and can be very upsetting for a young woman learning as she goes along (often the case). Some of the tasks call for a strong stomach and the carer leaves. The high turnover impacts severely on the client who depends heavily on continuity, the same faces turning up day after day and understanding what is being said to them.

Compare the above with the profile of a council in-house carer. Mature women in the main with an average age of 45 to 50 years. Many have been caring for the elderly for 20 to 30 years. They have a reliable back-up service, continuity of call patterns, know each and every one of their clients well, never rush their calls and always try to leave their clients feeling wanted and serene. Nothing fazes them. They have experienced just about everything that could possibly happen. They provide a vastly superior service.

The council-run service is a 24- hour, seven-days-a-week service provided by the "caring at home teams" and the all-night "out of hours" teams. The private sector cannot match this.

Now to come to Cllr Rogers' other main contention. The cost of care. What the councillor fails to disclose is that taken from the Homecare budget is a healthy slice of money to cover all other council overheads, thus pushing up the cost per hour for carers. These overheads include the salaries and expenses paid to executives and pay for councillors such as you, Cllr Roger. It also includes, of course, huge payments made to so-called "consultants" called in to advise on 'crazy' schemes thought up by the council.

The private sector is not saddled with such costs. Often they have an office and one or two admin staff. In some cases, they work nine to five and perhaps a Saturday morning. They have no overnight cover. If an emergency arises when their office is shut, for example on a Sunday evening, no one can be contacted until Monday morning. There is no comparison between the different levels of service provided.

Caring is a civic duty, Cllr Rogers, it is not about making a profit. The two are not compatible. When will you get that message? When will you get the message that you get what you pay for? The cheapest option, where care for the vulnerable is concerned, creates low standards and shoddy performance. The carers and those that need caring for have had enough of you.

Mr R Taylor
Sole Carer
Westbury-on-Trym

COUNCIL HAS NO SHAME SAYS HOMECARE ASSISTANT

I AM a Homecare assistant of many, many years' experience. I am feeling very depressed and let down at the prospect of losing the job I have carried out loyally, with my clients' best interests at heart, on every call I make.

When the threat of closure of Homecare originally came about carers were told to keep quiet about it. Not to tell their clients about it or the media. I wonder why? It is only now in recent weeks that the union has stepped in. The wool was being pulled over their eyes too by the council.

Now we are campaigning again, just as we did four years ago, this time with only half the workforce as the council split Homecare into two parts and created a group called "star" who do a necessary job for about six weeks with patients newly discharged from hospital setting up a care needs plan so that these patients can then be passed on to the continuing care at home council team.

But what in fact was happening was that the council deceitfully arranged for these new clients to be passed to the private sector. Their reason was to deplete the work for the care at home team.
What the council is doing is wrong. They are trying to deploy carers into jobs we don't want, for example join the "star" team where just a few vacancies still exist or work in a care home or day care centre as such jobs become available.

They are reluctant to offer redundancy. They say they haven't got the money. I love my job. I have been dedicated for years. The best years of my life. I thought I would be looking after my people and many other people with similar needs until I retired. This is what I am good at. This is what I want to do. Now I face an uncertain future due to a council that don't care a jot for the likes of me, devalue me and leave my life in tatters. They have no shame.

FROM EVENING POST AND BRISTOL 24/7 WEBSITES:

LIB DEM VOTERS VIEW. AJT77 writes: As a Liberal Democrat member I am appalled by their action on this. Homecare privatisation has been a disaster in Bath and North East Somerset with profit being put before care. I feel upset and let down by my party and salute the Labour Party and the Greens for trying to stop this.”

PRIVATE AGENCY CARERS' VIEW Pimmilini writes: Its funny how so many people judge private home care companies when we actually provide a very high standard of care, spend the full amount of time required with every service user and work for a far lower wage than Bristol City Council. The team I work with are all dedicated to their roles as carers and do a fantastic job. People only read the negative things about companies who have let the care industry down and do not look into the positive feedback from service users and family members.

What really makes me sick is the fact that all the day and respite centres are in line for closure but we can afford 2 million pound for a bendy bus, what is that all about! These vulnerable adults are being let down and will soon have no where to go and socialise many of whom have served this country. I think we need to look at all this from their point of view not from a money making scheme which is what the Bristol City Council are doing. If their staff were not over paid and didn't have half the perks they did then maybe they wouldn't have overspent on their budget.

Mrs T (lw)”

IN RESPONSE A VIEW ABOUT DECENT CAREWORK Bristol62 writes: Mrs T - its not funny. Your team, I have no doubt, are marvellous. Two days ago the Bedminster job centre were advertising a full time homecare job for £100 a week FACT! The Association of Directors of Adult Social have today described the system in place for providing adult social care as 'bust' FACT! Four days ago the UK Homecare Association said they had big safety concerns for service users and homecare workers FACT! Adult social care is in a massive mess across the country. Homecare, as a solution for looking after older vulnerable people, is coming under more and more pressure because care homes are being closed FACT! Three quarters of all Homecare workers in the private sector in the UK have NO guaranteed hours of work FACT!

None of this is happening because of Council employed homecare workers. They are NOT OVERPAID, they are paid £7.11 basic per hour and they get an enhancement for weekend working. This is in line with what decent private sector providers pay. They deal with the most intimate aspects of people's lives and bodies as they struggle at the end of their lives - and soldier on just like your team does no doubt. However, right now, is the time Bristol Council is choosing to get rid of it all of its Homecare Service. You express concern about money spent on bendy buses. I suggest now is not the time for Homecare workers to start picking a fight with each other but to wake up and realise that Homecare workers are being treated very badly. Decent homecare providers, whether Council run or private, are facing competition from poor homecare providers. In a race to the bottom, the system of regulation has been watered down by sucessive governments. Last week, members of the UK Care Homes Association decided they no longer had confidence in the Care Quality Commission. The Royal College of Nurses are currently surveying their members about similar concerns.

Treating care workers badly does the service users no favours whatsoever. I am grateful that you and your team provide such a tremendous service to our City. Thank you.

LABOUR PARTY SUPPORTER VIEW. TurnBristolRed Writes: Whilst much of homecare is carried out in the private sector 50% of it is low level unskilled work such as shopping, taking bins out and doing clothes washing. The inhouse care is the very skilled highly sensitive work such as changing catheters.

At first glance the unit costs of in house homecare is higher than private BUT NOT when you take into account there are homecarers who are being paid but deliberately under used. This is the reality and the lesson the Labour Party has learned and this is why we support the BCC in house homecare team

If u take just 2 minutes to read paragraphs 4 & 5 on this link http://www.scribd.com/doc/64072742/Homecare-Speec...

you'll see how bad this under use is and how it is seemingly deliberate. In my opinion Jon Rogers knows how to bring down the unit cost of in house homecare (use 6,500 hours a week of it) he just won't for ideological reasons. Playing politics with peoples care is a lousy thing to do.

IN RESPONSE PRIVATE AGENCY CARER VIEW 'Guest' writes: That's absolute rubbish!! I have been working as a Home Care Assistant for a private company for the last three years. Myself and every single one of my collegues at work also provide quality care to the most vulnerable members of our society. We ensure that the people we care for have taken vital medication, we assist them to get up in the morning, wash and dress, ensure they eat a nutritious meal. We change catheters and colostomy bags, dress bedsores (we HAVE received appropriate training to do so) and we act as an advocate for the individuals we care for, liaising with the benefits centre and other organisations to help them access and secure extra services .We always look out for their well-being, working with an holistic approach always. WE CARE TOO!

PRIVATE AGENCY CARE HANDOVER VIEW Guest(2) writes: I can't believe that Dr John Rogers thinks that quality services at reasonable prices can be obtained by letting private companies take over all care. I work for a private agency, they get away with whatever they like, they use the most vulnerable members of society as a money making commodity!

This evening, I visited a client who we had only just started to provide care for today. He has just lost his Council Home Care Assistant after many years. I am not a manager or supervisor, just a 'regular' care assistant. I am the first to visit him.

There was no 'handover', no care plan in place that I could read to establish his needs, my manager could tell me nothing about him other than his address. He is lost, depressed and quite frankly bewildered about what is going on. When I called my manager to express my concerns about the absence of a care plan, risk assessment or indeed any information about him, I was told "You're an experienced carer, I'm sure you'll figure it out".....

COMMENTS ANYONE? PLEASE, HAVE YOUR SAY BELOW

Privatisation and a full time homecare job in Bristol for £100 a week

2011-09-07T15:45:00.004+01:00

At last night's full Council meeting, the Conservatives announced their full support for Labour's call for privatisation plans to be scrapped. Yet as votes were taken, the Conservatives changed their minds and abstained. As a result, the minority Liberal Democrat administration defeated Labour and the privatisation plans stand.  Labour supporters may view this turn of events in light of the old adage 'never trust a Tory', but I won't be relying on its explanatory powers. Instead, I offer these words of Martin Luther King:
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity".

There were outright admissions of sincere ignorance in the Council Chamber last night. Cllr Janke was 'baffled' that the inhouse service was so much more expensive than the private sector, Cllr Jon Rogers gave an emphatic 'I do not know' as his answer to the same question.  Cllr Keilly offered the explanation that 'every other local authority has privatised' and Cllr Hopkins posed a pragmatic dilemma: 'People have a choice of where to spend their money and can make that choice. I ask you to consider the reality, who would make that choice when one (ie private sector) is half the cost'?

Cllr Rogers informed members that if they wanted to make the Council's own service competitive, 'the only way is to tear up employment contracts and offer them (Council workers) the same as the private sector.' However, it is the appalling terms and conditions of employment in the private sector which make the services so unsafe.  Read what the private homecare companies themselves have to say (UKHCA research report discussed in detail in blog post below).

Cllr Rogers told us a lovely story about recruitment practices by Brunelcare. Having checked the Brunelcare website I notice (even though they have no current vaccancies) that they offer a basic hourly rate of £7.00 plus enhancements, benefits, pension, training and mileage allowance. Currently, Bristol City Council staff receive a basic hourly rate of £7.11 plus enhancements, benefits, pension, training and mileage allowance. It made me wonder: if Brunelcare are so ace (and I have no reason to think they are not), why does Cllr Rogers think 'the only way' to improve Bristol Homecare would be to 'tear up' employment contracts?  Why not transfer Council Homecare workers to employment with Brunelcare with a contract to run the lot?

It took me no more than a couple of minutes to find these advertisements in the job centre today. Homecare worker jobs in Bristol, one offering £100 for a 37 hour week. It is advertised as an 'apprenticeship'. This means the employer avoids the National Minimum Wage. This 'apprenticeship' involves working ALONE, unsupervised in older people's houses, toiletting, dressing and bathing them. The other job advertisement I happened across offers pay just above national minimum wage for working a 15 hour stretch each day (remember Homecare is physically hard work and can be emotionally draining). You may be interested to note that all workers are entitled IN LAW to 11 hours break between shifts to safeguard their health and safety.

Job No:

BEG/41796

SOC Code:

6115

Wage

£100 per week

Hours

37 per week, Monday-Sunday, between 8am-8pm

Location

Bristol, Avon BS3

Duration

Permanent

Date posted

17 August 2011

Pension details

No details held

Description

This is an Apprenticeship. To train and develop in Health and Social Care to level 2. Duties include working without supervision in the homes of service users, providing support as part of the care package. Preparing meals and snacks and assisting with feeding, undertaking shopping and minor financial transactions, to assist with social activities and promote or assist with personal hygiene task which could include toileting bathing or dressing. To prompt taking of medicines prescribed. A car driver is preferred and must be 18+ as you will be working alone in service users homes. You will be enhancing the day to day life of the elderly residents by providing support for their daily living and activities. Successful applicants are required to provide an enhanced disclosure. Disclosure expense will be met by employer.

THE OTHER ONE

Job No:

BEG/41944

SOC Code:

6115

Wage

EXCEEDS NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE

Hours

30 HOURS OVER TWO DAYS SATURDAY AND SUNDAY

Location

BRISTOL BS3

Duration

Permanent

Date posted

07 September 2011

Pension details

No details held

Description

We are currently seeking an experienced carer to join a team of people providing 24hr support to our client. The hours of work are 0700-2200 each Saturday and Sunday.Whilst this vacancy is being advertised with one person in mind our client is prepared to accept two carers on a job share basis. You will be required to provide general support, personal care, and companionship. If you are committed to providing only the best standards of care and have a proven track record in a paid healthcare setting we would like to hear from you. You will be required to start during the first week of October. Successful applicants are required to provide an enhanced disclosure. Disclosure expense will be met by applicant but partly refunded after a qualifying period.

I have no desire to comment further about these advertisements, they speak for themselves.

For the sake of clarity, across England, local authorities have contracted 84% of homecare services out to the private sector. This is also the current proportion of private sector provision in Bristol. The plans under discussion last night will take Bristol into the realm of the 'all-eggs-in-one-basket' privatisers and destroy the last vestiges of mixed-service provision.

It was unfortunate that Cllr Hopkins confused personalised budgets with in-house homecare provision. Personalised budgets offer disabled people, particularly younger disabled people, the opportunity to exercise more control over how their support needs are met. Their choice is restricted, they are not able to choose to spend their budget with Bristol Council's own Homecare Service. The older people served by Bristol Council's Homecare workers DO NOT HAVE PERSONAL BUDGETS and they are unlikely ever to have them because they are too ill, too old, too alone, too vulnerable. (Please note: It has been brought to my attention that Bristol City Council do intend for all service users to have personal budgets at some point in the future and it is more accurate if I refer to the concept of direct payments in this paragraph. So I can rephrase: The older people served by Bristol Council's Homecare workers DO NOT (all) HAVE PERSONAL BUDGETS (yet) and will never use direct payments because they are too ill, too old, too alone, too vulnerable.

Cllr Rogers talked of a 'proper transition' as service users were moved between the Council's own service and private agencies. He even mentioned that older people were getting 'parallel provision' as both Council carers and agency workers acted together during a handover period. This is not happening. It might concern Cllr Rogers if he was aware that Homecare workers simply do not recognise his 'parallel provision'.

Cllr Keilly told us a heart warming, personal story about the quality of private sector residential care homes in London. 'Home care' and 'care home', two words, used two ways round, identify two very different services. Residental homes require heavy capital investment in a property portfolio and Councils, from the 1980's onwards, have lacked the cash to upgrade their own homes. The motivation for the privatisation of home care is to reduce the wages of workers who need very little by the way of equipment, technology or buildings to carry out their work. I suggest anyone wishing to avoid falling into conscientious stupidity reads today's article in Public Finance magazine about the massive 49% increase in residential care home insolvencies in the first half of 2011 http://networkedblogs.com/mGl9C . Local authorities have shifted their money out of residential care and moved it into home care because it is a much cheaper care solution. Care homes and home care are not two interchangable words but competing solutions for supporting older people.

Cllr Rogers informed the Chamber that trade unions had failed to make any statement over the Lib Dem's privatisation plans when a report was accepted in October 2010. Yes, Cllr Rogers, this is because the report does not say anything about service users being taken away from the inhouse service and handed over to private agencies. The report does not say that the traditional homecare service (called Continuing to Care or CTC in Bristol) will be abolished. The report does not say that homecare workers will be made redundant. The report signals an intention to merge the intensive homecare service (known as STAR) with the CTC service and to offer CTC staff specialist dementia training. This was a plan which had full union support. Cllr Rogers promised Cllr Abrahams, leader of the Conservative group that Bristol's Homecare Services would continue to provide emergency back up cover when private sector agencies go bust. But Cllr Rogers, there was no mention of retaining an emergency care function in the October 2010 report, just as there was no mention of closing down the CTC service.

When Conservative leader Cllr Abrahams said: 'we support mixed service provision, private should be the majority player but we want a Council in-house service', Cllr Janke and Cllr Rogers both assured him 'that is what is proposed'. And this is where the ill-informed arguments come full circle. It is exactly because the unions were led to believe that the proposals in 2010 would retain a CTC, long term traditional homecare service in Bristol (albeit with an additional dementia specialism) that the unions did not raise any objections about the report. What has happened in practice during 2011 is:

1. In April, staff were told that the CTC will close, they were sent letters to say their jobs were redundant
2. In May, these letter were withdrawn
3. In July, the unions realised that CTC was not being 'merged' but closed down
4. In August, staff were asked to identify if they would accept voluntary redundancy or redeployment - there is no option to stay with the CTC service
5. Since the beginning of August, service users have been forced, yes forced, to accept new private agency carers to replace the Bristol Homecare Service.

Cllr Janke claimed that their plan was the 'most consulted of any proposal'. There has been NO consultation with trade unions about plans to 1) make homecare workers redundant or 2) to stop taking new service users into the CTC/take existing service users away. NOT ONE MEETING. It is an employers' legal responsibility to enter into consultation with trade unions over redundancies, regardless of whether they are compulsary or voluntary and Bristol City Council has not done so.

If you would like to make any comment about this post, please do so below.

NOTE: The blog has had lots of comments from Jon Rogers, Executive Member for Health and Social Care at Bristol Council. All of them are pubilished below, just click on where it says comments underneath here. I will follow up on what he says in the next blog later today. Just bear in mind for the moment that some of his points about terms and conditions of Council staff need correcting because they are wrong.

Also, please note the issues which Cllr Rogers has responded to versus the points I raise which he hasn't touched on. Further comments from Care workers ARE ESPECIALLY WELCOME. YOU CAN KEEP IT CONFIDENTIAL, YOU DONT HAVE TO GIVE YOUR NAME and we now know CLLR ROGERS IS READING WHAT YOU SAY

THIS AFTERNOON - EARLY EVE, GET YOURSELVES DOWN TO THE COUNCIL HOUSE (it's important)

2011-09-06T09:49:00.000+01:00

5pm this afternoon (Tuesday) Homecares are meeting up outside the Council House ahead of a full Council meeting where we hope (fingers crossed) the privatisation of Bristol's Homecare Service will be up for a debate. The Council meeting begins at 6pm. I know Homecare workers are looking forward to seeing some of their 'old favourites' from the public gallery. Lets get some collective spirit going and show the Council that we really care about Homecare and the future of service provision in Bristol.

EVERYONE MOST CERTAINLY WELCOME - WHETHER YOU ARE HOMECARE, A SERVICE USER, AN INTERESTED MEMBER OF THE PUBLIC OR A CAMPAIGNER.

Private Sector Homecare Providers Speak Out Over Safety Concerns

2011-09-05T17:09:00.000+01:00

The UK Homecare Association (the professional body which represents private sector homecare companies) speaks out over ‘safety concerns’ today in their latest research (reported in Community Care Magazine).[1] The Social Care Association weighs in behind them about the enforced recruitment of ‘unsuitable people’ as homecare workers. The fears of UKHCA stand in stark contrast to confident declarations by Bristol’s own good doctor Cllr Rogers, head of health and social care in the City.[2] Cllr Rogers plans a total privatisation of continuing homecare services in the City and promises this is ‘safe’. In the face of safety concerns from private sector agencies, on record as unable to cope, Rogers claims his privatisation will ‘halve the cost but preserve the quality’ of homecare in Bristol.

The UKHCA research covers 111 local authority and health trust areas. In more than half, private homecare agencies have been forced to make their care even cheaper. Cheap care, claims Cllr Rogers, is achieved by cutting ‘bureaucracy and red tape’. The businesses who actually deliver these cheap services do not agree. Their care on the cheap involves paying little more than the national minimum wage, not paying homecarers for their travel time between each service user, making workers put in very long hours and tolerating them taking on second jobs to make up their pay. The Chair of the UKHCA, Mike Padgham, reports on a situation ‘which isn’t ideal.’

Adult care funding and provision is at breaking point in the UK. In Bristol, the Council’s own Homecare Service currently provides a safety net for independent providers and have stepped up to the mark to deliver excellent care when local firms have gone bust in recent weeks and months. Independent providers are struggling to cope with new market pressures, shortages of qualified staff and high rates of staff turnover, as well as maintaining the standards expected in the provision of good quality care. The interests of homecare workers and homecare service users are intimately intertwined.

Cheapening care is a very risky business indeed. When an older or disabled person needs two homecare workers to lift them out of their wheelchair, to get them out of bed, to ensure they don't slip in the shower, to clean soiled linen - they are ending up with only one homecare worker from private care agencies. This is a guarantee of inevitable accidents: hoists will not be used when they should be, older people will fall and break bones, homecare workers will suffer irreversable industrial injuries. This information cannot possibly qualify as the 'deliberate distortion' of 'improvements' to homecare in Bristol which Cllr Rogers has complained about. This admission comes from the private homecare companies who are fully aware that they are sending workers out to care in circumstances which are UNSAFE.

Bristol City Council meets in a full Council session tomorrow evening at 6pm. This is surely an important moment for the future of decent care provision in our City.

[1]http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2011/09/05/117393/Home-care-staff-face-worsening-pay-and-reduced-safety.htm
[2] see previous post for Roger's leaflet which contains all the quotes used here

DO NINE OUT OF TEN CATS PREFER PRIVATISED HOMECARE ?

2011-09-04T13:16:00.003+01:00

Homecare in Bristol is far from ‘safe’ as Jon Rogers, the Councillor responsible for care in the City, claims (see leaflet). His choice of the word ‘safe’ is very interesting because it is over the issue of safety that the Lib Dems and the Council’s homecare workers are in dispute.

The Council’s current use of private Homecare in Bristol is in line with the national average at 84%. The Lib Dems plan to go far beyond this and get rid of ALL its direct provision of long term Homecare. I am reminded that the Titanic was ‘safe’, until it sunk. Many, many people are concerned about the state of social care in the UK and this concern is based upon their experience of privatised care. Furthermore, even members of the National Care Homes Association (the operators of private sector residential care homes) now say the regulation of social care is inadequate. Nurses too have lost confidence in the Care Standards Commission. It is only a few weeks since Panorama exposed appalling institutional abuse at Winterbourne View in Bristol, that Rose Villa in Bristol closed down because it was ‘failing’, and three private homecare companies in Bristol have either ‘failed’ or gone bust in the past few months. Safe, Mr Rogers . . . are you really so certain?

To be eligible for homecare support from the Council’s Homecare Service means that the person concerned is either very ill with limited life expectancy or considerably disabled. One does not choose to be in need of homecare, but Mr Rogers offers us his assurance of safety based on ‘customer surveys’ - as though talking to GCSE business studies students. Mr Rogers approaches homecare like it's some sort of lifestyle choice where the only issue at stake is a matter of logos or branding. Indeed, it would not look out of place if his leaflet carried a banner saying ‘NEW IMPROVED HOMECARE, 100% MORE EFFECTIVE, 9 out of 10 CATS PREFER PRIVATISED CARE, WASHING MACHINES LIVE LONGER WITH CARE CO’.

People in Bristol know that attempts to cheapen the care service in the City are merely being spun as offering ‘more choice and control’. Frankly, the idea of offering a choice of homecare companies for critically ill people to (and I quote) ‘enjoy’ is total nonsense. The notion that this gives them ‘control’, borders on the downright offensive. Families who are currently experiencing the distress of losing their regular visits from Council homecare workers and being transferred over to private sector providers know that Mr Rogers' claim of a ‘smooth handover’ is untrue. A smooth handover is supposed to mean that the Council homecare worker who knows the service user well actually attends a handover meeting with the private care agency. This is vital for the safety of service users (for reasons that are so obvious I don't need to spell them out). To the union’s knowledge, this has not happened on a single occasion in Mr Rogers' so called, ‘improvement to home care services’.

Instead, the people involved: the homecare worker, the service user, their family members, are having their caring relationships ripped up in front of their eyes. Homecare workers are simply instructed that they are no longer to visit, they are not permitted to say goodbye nor to attend handover meetings. And lets be frank, these ‘people’ are mainly women. Most workers are women, most service users are women and most family members who take responsibility for care arrangements are also women.

Despite having a legal duty to conduct an Equalities Impact Assessment of the decision to remove Council services from service users, Bristol City Council has not done so. Let’s be clear about what this means. The Council has a legal obligation arising from the Equality Act 2010 to promote equality and reduce discrimination. The case law is crystal clear that the Equality Impact Assessment must be done before a policy decision is taken. The groups who are entitled to consideration via this special legal duty are (amongst others) women and disabled people. Where a risk of discrimination is uncovered, immediate action should be taken to reduce that risk. Mr Rogers is so certain of safety that he has decided not to comply with the law.

This is not the only legal pickle the Council are heading towards, from an employment law perspective they are acting in breach of their obligations on redundancies too. No consultation over collective redundancies has yet taken place with trade unions because the Council, wrongly, are proceeding on the basis that voluntary redundancies do not really count as job losses. Homecare Services in Bristol are so ‘safe’ that Mr Rogers has not even identified how many Council homecare workers will be made redundant. Just one of the many reasons for this is that Homecarers have been offered ‘alternative employment’ in care homes which are ear-marked for closure – hardly a promising employment offer.

Mr Rogers relies heavily on a mantra of ‘you’re safe, I am a doctor’ and offers us assurance of his credibility by drawing on the reputation associated with his profession. His latest leaflet makes a tempting offer: ‘If you are aware of any problems, at all, please contact me’. Yet seven days ago, Mr Rogers was informed by the union about a service user who had been left for three days at risk of dehydration, urinary tract infection and a deterioration of his psychological health. This very elderly man had been transferred from a Council homecarer to a private homecare agency and the agency had failed. The response of the good doctor Rogers was: ‘I am not sure that it is appropriate for you to be contacting me on this issue’.

And finally, don’t be fooled by Mr Rogers' repeated assertion that 85% of homecare services are already delivered by private companies. He keeps trotting out this line to make the concerns of homecare workers, local communities and service users seem like a fuss about nothing. Please bear in mind that half of this ‘85%’ is not the same work that the Council’s own homecare staff specialise in. About half of the work undertaken by private sector companies is on contracts for washing laundry, collecting pensions, cleaning houses and low-level care tasks. The Council’s own Homecare Service delivers personal care – it’s the tricky stuff of dealing with incontinence, open wounds, bathing the disabled, checking medication for stroke victims and dressing dementia sufferers. This is the work which is being transferred to the private sector and it doesn’t look like ‘waste and red tape’ to me.

SAVE BRISTOL HOMECARE RALLY

2011-09-03T20:49:00.002+01:00

What a brilliant day - loads of support, interesting speakers, and NO RAIN! Here's the highlights, brought to you with the pictures. Firstly, although upbeat and confident that we can win this dispute, the issues at stake are very serious. The expressions of the Homecare workers attending the Rally say it all - they are deeply concerned about Council plans to close the Homecare Service and what this means for them and their service users.

As Steve Preddy of Unite commented “we were delighted to be joined by both Conservative and Labour MP’s who shared a platform in opposition to the closure of the Homecare Service. It tells you that even politicians with opposing political views appreciate how damaging the Council's plans are for service users. It also testifies to the fact that the people of Bristol are firmly opposed to the total privatisation of the Homecare Service and the politicians know it.”

Conservative MP for Bristol North West Charlotte Leslie spoke of the importance of the high quality care provided by Bristol's Homecare Service. She pleaded with the Lib Dem run Council to reconsider their plans to close it down. Charlotte is in no doubt that vulnerable older and disabled people in the City need the security and reassurance of knowing their Council employed homecare workers will be here to stay for the future. Her contribution was followed by Kerry McCarthy, Labour MP for Bristol East. Kerry called for the Lib Dems to abandon their plans.

Kerry drew on her concerns about the privatisation of the NHS, to highlight the importance of homecare services for enabling older people to live in their own homes and not remain in hospital for any longer than necessary. Far from being costly, Homecare services provide a massive saving to the health budget.

It was excellent that Dave Matheson, Unite Executive Member for Public Services was able to join us, all the way from Hull. Dave spoke about the union's committment to fighting all cuts and campaigning for decent community services. John McInally, National Vice President of PCS (public and commercial service union) spoke about the importance of unions working together to defend jobs, communities and, in our case, the best quality care services in the City. Peter Allenson, Unite's national secretary for Public Services, offered his fulsome support and congratulated Bristol's homecare workers for their excellent campaign and fighting spirit.

It was fantastic to hear too from film-maker Ken Loach who spoke about the importance of the welfare state to working people. He recognised that Homecare workers found it very difficult to take industrial action - after all, if they came out on strike they would be hurting the service users they care for. He urged us to work together and use our political voice to make change happen.

Perhaps best loved of all, was the speech by Mr Bob Taylor, the husband of a service user who has provided stellar support to the campaign to keep Bristol's Homecare Service. A massive thank you has to go out to everyone who supported us today.

‘Homecare scandal’ wastes £7 million plus 500,000 un-used care hours over three years at Bristol City Council

2011-09-02T09:43:00.002+01:00

A trawl of Bristol City Council’s online paperwork has revealed financial and operational mismanagement has wasted £7 million over 3 yrs and left hundreds of thousands of homecare hours unused. Unite claims the Authority has consistently failed to use its own workforce to provide homecare services in the City and has chosen to place additional expenditure with private agencies in a cynical effort to break in-house provision. Local support for the retention of Bristol City Council’s own homecare service was strong enough to bring down the Lib Dem administration when they last attempted to privatise it in 2007. Unite’s Regional Organiser Steve Preddy is outraged: ‘The Lib Dems are in control of the Council again and as the monopoly purchaser of homecare services in the City, the Council can make or break any service provider. They have attempted to break their very own Homecare Service, which they themselves manage. In the process they have wasted millions of pounds of public money and left hundreds of service users with no Council carer to turn to.’

Bristol City Council’s has a weekly target of 6,500 hours of care to be provided by its own workers in caring for older people in the City.[1] Latest available data shows the Council used only 4,481 hours a week in 2010/2011, leaving its homecare workers with no service users to provide care to for the remainder of the time.[2] Unite claims this waste of over 2,000 hours of care every week has failed to make use of £2.9 million worth of annual resources invested in staff and costs.[3] Over three years this mis-management has eaten up approx £8.7 million in wasted care. Unite alleges that the Council instead opted to purchase alternative hours of care from private sector agencies to make up the shortfall. Paperwork dating back to 2009 reveals this practice costs £44,000 a week, a staggering £2.3 million each year.[4] Steve Preddy explains: “This scandalous waste of resources – hundreds of thousands of unused homecare hours and £7 million of extra cash to buy services in from agencies - is the key explanation for Lib Dem claims that the service is too expensive. The expense has been entirely manufactured by management incompetence and political negligence. A Homecare workers’ basic wage is £7.11 per hour, that’s a modest wage for the best trained, most reliable and experienced homecare workers in the City. If the Council met its own commissioning targets, the cost per hour of care would dramatically drop. Managers and politicians both know full well that the less they use their own workforce, the more expensive their care appears to be.”

A 2009 analysis by Bristol’s Director of Health and Social Care, Cathy Morgan, debunked the myth that the Council’s massive overspend in the Homecare budget was caused by an increase in demand. She explained to Councillors that Bristol City Council was not purchasing enough homecare from its own service: ‘Homecare packages [from Bristol City Council’s own Homecare Service] are not meeting planned levels, which may result in a reliance on commissioning from the independent sector’.[5] Indeed, during a previous 12 month period, Council purchase of homecare hours from the private sector had increased by a massive 35% (4,500 hours per week), which was a ‘much larger increase than had been experienced in the two years previous’ resulting in a ‘significant, unaccounted for demand on the independent sector homecare budget’.[6] At the same time, Morgan reported a steady fall in the number of older people that the Council had referred to its own Homecare service.[7] The Director acknowledged the Council’s own Homecare Service had 2340 hours of un-commissioned care time each week,[8] which, if used, would ‘reduce dependence on independent sector homecare provision’.[9]

In 2010, a new Director of Health and Social Care, David Johnstone recommended that contracting and procurement by Bristol City Council could be improved because the size of home care packages purchased from the private sector was too high.[10] Johnstone noted that more staff and resources were needed to support older people to live at home. Achieving this would ‘not mean we will be cutting services’.[11] He explained his intentions as: ‘Firstly, . . . to focus our in-house home care services on people with high levels of need. Secondly, to ensure we are as efficient as possible, and that we get more care for the same amount of money.’[12] Johnstone left expectedly in March 2011. In April, the Council issued letters to homecare staff and service users stating that the Council’s Homecare Service was to close and service users moved to private providers. Unite challenged the Council on the grounds that these notices were unlawful and the Council withdrew them. Steve Preddy explains the current situation: “Bristol City Council is continuing to turn older people in need of Homecare away from its own, directly employed Homecare workers and yet continues with the myth that their service is too expensive to retain. If the Council truly wants ‘more care for the same money’, as they claim to, they would make a good start by actually using the hours at their disposal within their own workforce. All Homecare workers changed their contractual hours to accommodate management demands, they have done everything asked of them. This is an appalling scandal of waste, incompetence and negligence.”

For further information contact: Steve Preddy, Regional Officer, Unite

Mobile: 0776 446 7443, email: steve.preddy@unitetheunion.org

https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2009/sc/sc030/1215_8.pdf Appendix 2 para 1

[1] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2008/ua/ua000/0110_6.pdf Appendix 5

[2] Based on sample taken for Department of Health 6^th Sept 2010. 3541 hours CTC section, 940 hours STAR section.

[3] The service is comprised of two sections Continuing to Care (CTC) provides standard long term homecare support to older people and STAR (Intensive Rehabilitative homecare). The CTC budget is £6.7m and STAR £2.6m https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2008/ua/ua000/0110_6.pdf appendix 3

[4] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2009/sc/sc022/0309_7.pdf p6

[5]

[6] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2009/sc/sc030/1215_8.pdf Appendix 2 para 2

[7] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2009/sc/sc030/1215_8.pdf%20Appendix%202, para 3(d)

[8] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2009/sc/sc030/1215_8.pdf%20Appendix%202, para 3(c)

[9] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2009/sc/sc030/1215_8.pdf%20Appendix%202, fig 6

[10] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2010/sc/sc030/0720_mins.pdf p.6

[11] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2010/sc/sc030/1019_14.pdf, p.3, para 4.5

[12] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2010/sc/sc030/1019_14.pdf%20p.4 para 4.6

WHAT A RIP OFF! Private sector Homecare agencies overcharge by at least £5million and the Council does nothing for five years

2011-09-01T11:07:00.000+01:00

Bristol City Council agreed five years ago to introduce a Electronic Monitoring system to prevent known overcharging by private homecare companies: at a cost of £931,506 each year (at 2006 prices). This system has STILL not been introduced. This has cost the City over £5 million in payment of excess bills. Either the political leadership of Bristol City Council is unable to exert control over the performance of management, or the leadership itself is turning a blind eye to these overpayments. This is in clear contravention of the Councils own anti-fraud and financial management policies.[1] At a time when critical cost comparisons are being made between the Council’s own Homecare service and the private sector, Bristol City Council is unable to know precisely how much homecare is actually delivered when it pays for private sector provision. By default, charging for time where care is not provided gives the private sector a considerable competitive advantage and makes their costs look lower than they actually are.’

The overcharging of £931,506 per year was first identified in 2006; [2] the Authority decided to invest in an Electronic Monitoring system (EMS) for all Homecare services in the City. £500,000 was set aside for the purchase and operation of the system over an initial 5 year period.[3] Now, five years later, Unite is aware that throughout the entire period, EMS has not been implemented.

In the Evening Post today, the Council has tried to defend itself by claiming there has been a delay of a FEW MONTHS!! (see http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/Marchers-protest-care-changes/story-13243229-detail/story.html). Err, 5 years is 60 months, not a few and we're still counting! They claim: "phase one has been completed and the second phase is a couple of months behind schedule." Exactly what 'phase one' and 'the second phase' are remains unclear - perhaps they are strange movements of the moon? More important is the Council's confirmation that "Providers have been told that they have been overpaid and this money will be recovered by the end of this financial year". The savings anticipated are actually more than £1million a year. So the private sector has been overcharging, to the Council's knowledge, for 5 years. They have worked out that at today's prices there has been an annual rip-off to the tune of over £1 million. But the best bit from the council is this little gem: Recovering the money from the private homecare companies "will need careful planning to AVOID CAUSING UNSUSTAINABLE CASH FLOW PROBLEMS for some providers". That's right, the Council can't ask for the money back because the private companies could go bust.

If fact, that's the reason why the EMS was not introduced earlier. The Council keeps claiming their own service is too expensive when compared to private sector costs . . . even though keeping the private sector going has depended on a system of overpayment to make private sector prices look as low as possible.

This well-orchestrated collusion between the Council and its private sector homecare outfits has involved managers coming up with a stream of excuses over the past five years which include:

December 2008: The project was been delayed due to a number of operational reasons but would be up and running in early 2009. This would play ‘a significant role’ in cost savings/efficiency improvements.[4] It is minuted that Councillors are: ‘deeply concerned that the EMS had been delayed. They had been led to believe this system would be in place 18 months ago and in the meantime potential savings were not being made.’[5] Managers assure them that they have now identified the ‘most suitable system’, acknowledge the EMS as ‘fundamental to the service achieving the savings and efficiencies required’ and are required that the matter be ‘resolved urgently’.[6]

March 2009: Managers report that an ‘EMS Project Manager’ was working on a first stage of implementation which would be ‘quick to introduce’ and deliver ‘immediate results’.[7]

October 2009: Delays had occurred because they needed to ‘tighten the specification’ but the tender was now going out and EMS would be implemented in financial year 2010/2011.[8]

December 2009: Director of Health and Social Care confirms that EMS will ‘enable the precise amount of home care provided to be accurately recorded; this will prevent users sometimes being overcharged’.[9]

October 2010: Cllr Jon Rogers, Executive Member for Health and Social Care confirmed that the purchase of an EMS system for homecare was ‘on target’.[10] Director of Health and Social Care reports that the size of home care packages purchased from the independent sector is too high.[11]

As of August 2011, the EMS system has NOT been implemented by Bristol City Council. For the past 5 years the Council, according to its own figures, has been overcharged by private sector homecare providers by at least £5million (we still dont know the true figure, perhaps we never will). The Council has failed to take action to remedy older people being asked to pay for care which they didn’t actually receive and the Council itself continues to financially support overcharging by private homecare agencies’.

WHAT A RIP OFF!

[1] Bristol City Council’s policy of financial risk management stipulates that financial issues in any of its departments which indicate a likely loss or benefit of over £500,000 OR a fraudulent loss of over £25,000 are categorised as high risk. https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2010/ua/ua000/0225_12.pdf Appendix 1 p9

[2] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2007/ua/ua000/0208_6.pdf Appendix: business case financial spreadsheet, project ID ACC0014. Introduced in other Councils, EMS had reduced the incidence of private agency overcharging and the associated billing of older people for services they hadn’t actually received. (see https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2007/ua/ua000/0208_6.pdf p3). The Department of Health Care Service Efficiency Delivery project reported cost reductions through EMS of 17% of total commissioning budgets in two studies. (see https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2007/ua/ua000/0208_6.pdf p3). Through EMS one local authority discovered that 23% of the 15 minutes visits it commissioned from the private sector in reality lasted less than 1 minute. (see http://www3.hants.gov.uk/councilmeetings/advsearchmeetings/meetingsitemdocuments.htm?sta=&pref=Y&item_ID=2827&tab=2 Decision Report p2 )

[3] Cabinet meeting 8^th February 2006 https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2007/ua/ua000/0208_6.pdf

[4] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2008/sc/sc022/1209_mins.pdf p4

[5] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2008/sc/sc022/1209_mins.pdf p6

[6] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2008/sc/sc022/1209_mins.pdf p6

[7] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2009/sc/sc022/0309_mins.pdf p3

[8] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2009/sc/sc030/1014_8b.pdf p5

[9] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2009/sc/sc030/1215_mins.pdf p3

[10] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2010/sc/sc030/1019_12.pdf p3

[11] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2010/sc/sc030/0720_mins.pdf p.6

Would a Council REALLY pay someone more than the Prime Minister and then ignore their advice?

2011-08-31T10:48:00.001+01:00

Following yesterday's post, we've been asked for more information about the advice (of a man paid more than the Prime Minister) that was ignored (by Bristol City Council). The ex-executive Director of the Care Quality Commission (CQC - the government's regulator of care standards) was employed by Bristol City Council for ten months as the interim Director of Health and Social Care. His name is David Johnstone and his appointment marked the first occasion that anyone from outside of Bristol City Council had been appointed to lead the Directorate.[1] He advised in October 2010 that homecare packages commissioned from the private sector by Bristol were larger than those of comparator authorities.[2] One of his plans to save money was to focus on the external contracts the Council had made with private care providers. In his opinion, contracting and procurement could be improved because the size of home care packages purchased from the independent sector was too high.[3] Johnstone was employed as a consultant from May 2010 and departed unexpectedly in March 2011. He received a total payment of £159,250.[4] If he worked every day for those ten months (and we still dont know that he did), he would have been on approx £723.85 a day. He was only a part-timer, his daily rate would work out to be much higher.

Specifically, Johnstone:

1. Submitted a report to Cabinet in October 2010 (which they accepted) in which no reference was made to discontinuing in-house Homecare services

2. Personally held meetings with Homecare workers across the City to assure them that his plans did not mean the closure of the service, but its retention with a specialist dementia-care focus

3. Promised workers specialist dementia care training and security of employment

4. Confirmed his plans meant they would retain 80% of their existing client base because dementia affected such a high proportion of older people in Bristol

Johnstone left the Authority suddenly, what followed:

1. In April, Bristol City Council wrote to all homecare workers and service users to inform them that the service would close

2. Withdrew those notices in May when the unions highlighted that such a move was unlawful

3. Proceeded to remove service users from the care of local authority care workers and transfer them to private providers (a process which is ongoing)

4. Wrote again to Homecare workers asking them to identify their preference either for voluntary redundancy or redeployment elsewhere in the Council with an end August 2011 deadline

Why Johnstone left Bristol City Council so suddenly remains a mystery. But its a mystery which perhaps makes a little more sense when the behaviour of the Council before his departure is compared to their behaviour towards Homecare workers and service users after he had gone.

[1] Bill McKitterick transferred from Avon County Council to undertake the role when Bristol first became a unitary authority in 1996 until he left amid a financial crisis. From 2005 the role was undertaken by Annie Hudson, who had previously been divisional director of Children’s Services http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2005/nov/02/publicsectorcareers.careers9. January 2009 Cathy Morgan was appointed as Interim Director of Health and Social Care, she had spent most of her working life at Bristol, working her way up from being a mental health social worker. David Johnstone took on the post in May 2010 having previously worked as Director of Operations at the Care Quality Commission and prior to that as Director of Adult and Community Services at Devon County Council http://www.lgcplus.com/briefings/services/adult-services/johnstone-heads-to-bristol-from-cqc/5014731.article

[2] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2010/sc/sc030/0720_mins.pdf p.6

[3] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2010/sc/sc030/0720_mins.pdf p.6

[4] Annual salary for directly employed Director of Health and Social Care would have been £101,226 per annum. See FOI request response about Johnstone’s salary at http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/use_of_consultants#incoming-185355

Ex-Executive Director of CQC paid more than the Prime Minister as Bristol’s Head of Health and Social Care

2011-08-29T18:33:00.004+01:00

A freedom of information disclosure reveals ex-executive director of CQC (Care Quality Commission), responsible for regulating the private care sector, was paid more than the Prime Minister’s annual salary for just 10 months work as Bristol City Council’s director of Health and Social Care. David Johnstone left Bristol City Council very suddenly in April. Unite claims his advice was ‘ignored’ by Council leaders. As interim strategic director of Health and Social Care, Johnstone was paid £159,250 for only ten months work between May 2010 and March 2011: equivalent to £191,100 per annum.[i] David Cameron’s salary is £142,000. Johnstone’s fee was £89,874 more than he would have received if formally appointed to the role through the Council’s standard recruitment practice. Unite claims that because his advice about the future of homecare services for older people in the City has been ignored, the Council’s Homecare workers will lose their jobs and the service will close.

Unite’s Steve Preddy commented: ‘Unite had no idea Johnstone was paid so much. The only possible explanation for his enormously inflated wage is the expertise he offered as a specialist in the management of care services. Johnstone personally assured all Homecare staff that their jobs were safe. He recommended savings be made through better commissioning and more effective use of staff time. This advice has been ignored by a Lib Dem administration who are now hell-bent on privatising all homecare in Bristol instead of managing this precious service in a responsible fashion.’

Johnstone was not the only person concerned about staff being ‘under-utilised’.[ii] The Executive Member for Health and Social Care Dr Jon Rodgers has previously admitted ‘we can save £1000’s by using services effectively. At the moment we commission services we don’t currently use and there is waste in the Council.’[iii] However, rather than turning these wasted care hours into productive time spent with service users as recommended by Johnstone, Unite claims Lib Dems quickly dispensed with Johnstone’s services because they were determined to maximise the proportion of the Council’s care budget spent privately.

Johnstone had a ‘strong and successful record in leading and developing adult social care services’[iv] and replaced the previous interim director of health and social care who had worked for the Council for nearly 20 years. Johnstone himself has been further replaced by another ‘interim’ Director. His advice to the Council confirmed that ‘services would not be changed, good practice would be put in place instead’.[v] In early 2011 the Lib Dems approved his budget plans to find savings from the Council own homecare service by reducing the use of agency staff, reducing sickness levels, and reducing management overheads.[vi] However, days after Johnstone’s unexpected departure, the Council sent homecare staff letters informing them that their jobs were to be scrapped. Although the Council subsequently apologised and withdrew the letters when trade unions made clear that the Council’s actions were unlawful, the process of transferring service users from Council provision to private companies has continued unabated.

Unite’s Steve Preddy commented: ‘The Council continually claim that private sector care is cheaper than that provided by the Council’s own workers but it is a failure of leadership and management that is the most significant factor in the disparity of costs. Bristol people will be astonished to learn that the recommendations of a man considered to be worth more than the Prime Minister have been so callously ignored.’

For further information contact: Steve Preddy, Regional Officer, Unite

Mobile: 0776 446 7443, email: steve.preddy@unitetheunion.org

[i] http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/use_of_consultants#incoming-185355

[ii] http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/Home-care-help-face-shake/story-11238940-detail/story.html

[iii] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2011/ua/ua000/0127_5.pdf p14

[iv] http://www.lgcplus.com/briefings/services/adult-services/johnstone-heads-to-bristol-from-cqc/5014731.article

[v] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2010/sc/sc030/1124_mins.pdf p3

[vi] https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2011/ua/ua000/0127_5.pdf p8

Why Bristol City Council's Homecare Service Must Be Saved

2011-08-29T18:00:00.004+01:00

If you care to look through the older posts on this site, they tell the tale of our campaign to save Bristol's Homecare Service from privatisation 4 years ago. By campaigning effectively, the decision was sucessfully overturned by Homecare workers, service users and the electorate. In the local election, the Lib Dems paid the price for treating Homecare with contempt. They lost many seats and consequently lost the confidence of the Council Chamber. A new minority Labour administration, supported by the Conservatives, worked with the trade unions to agree a viable way forward for Council Homecare. The service was too expensive because staff time was under-utilised. Managers argued it was a consequence of high sickness levels and inflexible hours of work. Homecare workers quickly agreed to change their hours and supported plans to reduce sickness. In return, the Council would commissioned work from its own Homecare Service in such a way that labour efficiencies would be radically improved.

Fast forward to 2011: The homecare workers did everything required of them and the response from the Council was one that can only be described as betrayal. Workers moved to flexible contracts and sickness absence was halved: close to target by mid 2010. The Council failed abysmally to deliver on their side of the bargain and did not effectively commission work from their own Homecare Service. As a result, labour efficiencies are now breathtakingly bad. Back under Lib Dem control, Bristol City Council again plans to privatise all of its Homecare service. Perhaps the Lib Dems have decided to exact revenge for their defeat in 2007. Perhaps the management and supervising politicians are so astonishingly incompetent that they don’t understand that paying Homecares for doing nothing for 40% of their time dramatically increases unit costs. Whatever the cause, we are faced with the nauseating spectacle of Homecare workers, service users and the Bristol electorate being punished for having the collective courage to challenge care privatisation back in 2007.

Since 80% of the homecare currently provided for older people in Bristol is commissioned by the Council from private sector outfits, what we are faced with in 2011 is not a case of in-house versus market-led services. The arguments against wholesale privatisation are two-fold: both concern the protection of vulnerable people. Firstly, the homecare workers themselves and secondly, the older and disabled people they care for.

Women (because it is an almost exclusively female workforce) working for private sector homecare agencies have some of the very worst terms and conditions of employment of any workers in the UK. Hence it is difficult to recruit women to work in homecare and staff shortages are endemic. In terms of traditional economic theory, one might think that labour shortages would push up wages. However, the homecare market is 'monopsistic' - this means that in the local market for homecare services, there are many providers but only one customer. The single customer, in this case Bristol City Council, prevents effective competition by exerting monopoly control over how much it is willing to pay.

Instead of producing an improvement in wages, the labour shortage in homecare makes the working conditions worse. Workers are cajoled or bullied into working long or unexpected hours to cover for staff shortages. Corners are cut. Care companies go bust, workers get into serious personal debt. The vast majority of women working for private sector homecare companies are employed on contracts that deny them the employment rights which many other workers take for granted - like the right to take unpaid time off work in a family emergency, or maternity pay, sick pay or the confidence that accompanies a regular income and stable hours of work. The very basic rights they do have, like entitlement to the national minimum wage or basic holiday leave, are routinely violated. Official statistics show that 10% of all homecare workers are paid below the National Minimum Wage, and these are only the reported cases. However, Council employed care workers, although not highly paid (in Bristol they get a basic wage of £7.11 per hour), do have employment rights, do have a trade union to represent them, enjoy sick pay and have much greater economic security than their private sector counterparts.

Homecare markets are localised: the controlling customer for the entire local market is Bristol City Council and the women who work as homecares live near to the service users they care for. The most significant element in competition for labour supply is the existence of work opportunities both with the Council and with private agencies. If the better paid and more secure jobs provided directly by Bristol City Council disappear, terms and conditions will deteriorate even further in the jobs that remain in the private sector.

This impacts on the second group of vulnerable people in the homecare market: the older and disabled people who receive services. Labour shortages in the private sector mean that staff turnover is so high that older people often don't know who their carer is, who the next person knocking on the door will be. If a carer does not show up, older people can find themselves left sat in their own urine or faeces, or unable to take the medicine they need, or left without a drink all day. They get frightened.

Only a couple of days ago a very elderly, incontinent and immobile service user had his care package taken away from Bristol's own homecare service and handed over to a private agency. He was distraught at losing his trusted Council homecare worker and cried for many hours because his new agency carer had forgotten to give him a hot drink and had not changed his sheath catheter. He was left at risk of dehydration, urinary tract infection and skin ulcers. Older people who need care know how vulnerable their lives are.
They have little faith in a system in which their only point of social contact or their only source of personal assistance is based upon an unstable commissioning arrangement between faceless bean-counters at the local authority and the local franchise of a multi-million pound care company.

Sometimes these companies fail. In high profile cases, take for example Bristol's Winterbourne View as exposed by Panorama, owners decide to shut up shop because appalling, institutionalised abuse is uncovered. Not infrequently, business failure means going bust - look at the precarious state of Southern Cross care homes. Most often though, homecare agencies fail their service users by cutting corners, employing untrained staff, failing to complete Criminal Records Bureau checks, mixing up service user's medication, not putting in the time they are supposed to, or simply failing to turn up at all.

This market instability is the price we inevitably pay when we (as a society) collectively concur that markets can run things more efficiently than centralised, highly bureaucratic, publicly-owned services. True, the care market is regulated, but the Gordon Brown inspired 'era of light-touch regulation' did not only impact goings-on in the City of London, it also shaped the regulation of care markets. The regulation of private sector care has been progressively watered down at every opportunity. The Care Quality Commission, the current regulator of care services, now has such a poor reputation for quality control that in June of this year it even lost the confidence of the very private sector companies it was designed to oversee at the National Care Homes Association annual conference.

It's too late to turn the clock back on the privatisation of care services. Not all private sector care is bad. However, we must deal with the reality that, in fact, all these companies operate within a care market which is based on weak regulation, routine abuse of employment rights and a desperate clamour for cheapness from a monopoly customer. In such a system, the retention of (some) Council run, secure, reliable and democratically accountable homecare services becomes an absolute necessity. When the market fails, as it inevitably does, the Council's homecare service picks up the pieces.

When two private homecare companies in Bristol ceased trading earlier this year, it was the Council's homecare service that stepped in to take on the abandoned service users. The Council's emergency homecare team provides round-the-clock cover, intervenes in case of missed appointments and at times of critical need. Bristol City Council's homecare workers are, without doubt, the most experienced and capable carers in the City. Despite being low paid, homecare is a highly skilled job. These workers apply a wealth of knowledge about medication, medical equipment, physical disabilities and older people's health needs. They pay attention to the signals that warn of a person becoming weaker, take preventative action and build proactive relationships with their service users. There are huge outstanding care needs within our City: take for example the 50% of dementia sufferers who live in their own homes or the 20% who live totally alone - as yet there are no specialist homecare services for them. Consider the needs of the terminally ill who do not wish to die in hospital - their expectations of a dignified death in the comfort of their own home are only just beginning to be taken seriously. Think of your own Dad or your Grandma, what do you wish for them? Surely, at a minimum, you want a care market that does not dump its inherent failures on people who are too weary, too frightened and too dependent to do anything about it?

Bristol City Council, as the architect of the care market in the City, has the power to make or break care providers. Its approach to its own Homecare Service has been to try and break it. Despite the best efforts of the workforce, they have been betrayed. The Council has failed to use the time and expertise of its own staff in a determined effort to claim the service is too costly. A Council employed Homecare earns £7.11 an hour, each hour of care bought from the private sector costs at least £16. Homecare is not a technical enterprise, it's a business based on organising skilled women in such as way as to make sure that as much of their time as possible is spent with an older person in need of care at home. Bristol City Council have been doing that task so badly of late that they calculate their own service now costs £34 for each hour of care delivered. This is simply not good enough.

The solution needed in Bristol is not to de-regulate homecare even further, putting every last pound of public money into private hands, but to retain the service and manage it properly. For the sake of vulnerable people in the City, both those who work in homecare and those in need of care, Bristol's City Council's own Homecare service must be retained.

Four years later and the Council come after us again!

2011-08-18T09:51:00.000+01:00

This blog is reactivated for a new campaign to save the inhouse homecare service in Bristol. We won the argument to keep the service back in 2007. The Liberal Democrats are now back in control of the city council. They have lied and cheated their dedicated team of homecare workers by promising them that their jobs were safe yet have recently announced that the service is to close. More updates soon

OLDER POSTS FROM 2007 START HERE: We've won in Bristol - the campaign now goes national

2007-05-30T15:30:00.002+01:00

FROM THE END OF THE CAMPAIGN IN 2007: LABOUR TO SCRAP HOME CARE PRIVATISATION - front page of the Bristol Evening Post. We've won our local fight but our campaign for decent employment standards and high quality, accountable home care continues. We are taking it national.

Home Care workers from Bristol met with Prime Minister-in-waiting Gordon Brown last weekend. Deputy Labour leadership Candidate Harriett Harman has pledged her support and will help us organise a meeting of MPs and Bristol Home Care workers in the House of Commons in July.

RESULT! Labour take control of the City and commit to Keep Bristol Home Care

2007-05-23T15:13:00.000+01:00

Describing Home Care as a 'Watershed issue' for the council in Bristol, Helen Holland the leader of the minority labour group, had the bottle to stand up and take leadership of the City. Plans to privatise Bristol's in house Home Care service are consigned to the dustbin!

Last night the Lib Dems wouldnt go far enough, they wouldnt reject privatisation . . . so the Labour and the Conservative and Greens wouldnt back them. They lost control of the City.
Labour came forward and took up the reigns! Committed to an inhouse service, the Labour group showed leadership and stuck by us.

It was a meeting full of energy. Our campaign has been successful, we have kept the inhouse service. It doesnt mean there wont be changes, of course there will. The significance of this victory is that we have established the need for a Council to commit to its inhouse service, for the leadership of the council to commit to deliver services directly and respect its own workforce and the unique contribution we make to the communities of this City.

Conservatives up the anti

2007-05-18T15:07:00.000+01:00

Leader of Bristol's Conservative group, Richard Eddy has publicly offered to run the council in partnership with the Labour group. Putting party politics aside, its interesting to see someone be straightforward about the need for a settlement on the leadership of the council to be combined with a settlement to Keep Bristol Home Care. http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=144913&command=displayContent&sourceNode=231190&home=yes&more_nodeId1=144922&contentPK=17352145

Councillors come good . . . so far . . .

2007-05-16T13:59:00.000+01:00

Last night, Councillors met to try and form a leadership group for Bristol City Council. The Lib Dems tried on three separate occasions to gather enough support for them to take control, but Labour, Tories and the Green Councillor came good and solidly opposed them.

It means the meeting was suspended for 7 days to give everyone time to talk. One thing is clear, the plan to privatise the Home Care service will have to be shelved.

Let's see what discussions with all political parties over the next few days will uncover. They need to take responsibilty for a high quality, well managed, accountable, responsive, secure, service user focused Home Care service which puts the quality of the relationships between Home Care workers and service users as a top priority - just like the older and disabled people of Bristol asked them to!

Celebration of Care

2007-05-16T13:19:00.000+01:00

Our Celebration of Care event at Bristol Cathedral went very well. With an audience of 300 we challenged councillors and other city leaders to recognise the true value of care, both informal and professional, to our local communities.

The speakers were:

Lydia Hayes of T&G "What is happening in Bristol is significant, what will happen in Bristol will be ground breaking.

Care will be Celebrated in this city – tonight is the start. Care for the elderly and the vulnerable will not be marginalised. Care workers will be proud of their profession and will demand to be valued as professionals.

Informal carers, those that give their love, give their time, give their emotional energy
for those dear to them who need their assistance, will be supported and assisted by care professionals.

Ivan Lewis, the minister for social care, has recognised that current provision in England is inadequate, he has asked for a national debate. Let that debate start tonight,

Let the voices of the home care workers and the service users be heard.

Charlotte Leslie of the Conservative Party gave a passionate insight into to the true value of care by drawing on her personal experience of caring for an older vulnerable person with failing sight.

Jack Dromey, T&G Deputy General Secretary had a message for Bristol City Council - you may be seeking to cast aside the Home Care workers – but WE won’t. There is a national crisis in care – that is not an excuse for allowing a local crisis to emerge. It is a reason to put things right and to start putting it right locally.

The Home Care Workers of Bristol have three demands:

1 - that 50% of the Home Care service is kept in house. Enough is enough, no further privatisation.

2 - that the vacancy freeze which the service has struggled with on and off for years is now lifted.

3 - that the Council demonstrates a commitment to, and a respect for, high quality management of its Home Care service.

It is only if these three demands are met that we can be sure older and vulnerable people in this city are protected.

Stephanie Weston was the final speaker of the evening. There were quite a few in the audience that shed tears. She said: "We are paid Carers, but its beginning to feel like we really aren’t supposed to care. In a world where only the cheapest service will do, are we supposed to get in and out of a house as quick as possible?

Are we supposed to care by doing the bare minimum?

Are we supposed to resist from building any bond or attachment with people?

It is supposed to be ‘unprofessional’ to get too close, to really care.

I’m going to talk about the truth that anyone who works in Home Care knows.

The whole point of Home Care is to prevent people in need ending up in institutions. To stop them from going into residential or nursing homes before they need to, to stop them from needing hospitalization, to stop them from becoming that most demonised of patients: ‘bed blockers’.

So we look after them at HOME. From the minute we walk through the door, we enter their personal space, we impact on their personal private lives.

We do an amazing job, we are special people who support special people.

The relationships we build and the trust people place in us cannot be priced.

How much value can be placed on being a friendly, familiar face to a lonely person?

How much value can be placed on our role as an extra family member during times of crisis?

These things are special things, these things should not be ignored because they have no financial value.

They cannot be costed. We are priceless!

Councillors and the people of Bristol: You have a great service with a flexible, dedicated, hard working, workforce. A service which is cherished by its users and their families. A service which is irreplaceable.

Work with us to build on these foundations and Celebrate Care

Provide an in house homecare service which others covet

A service which treats people as individuals and values the unique and intimate bond between service users and homecare assistance

A service which will set the benchmark

A service where care comes before profit

A Celebration of Care that Bristol can be proud of.

Liverpool Home Care - EXPLOITED

2007-05-08T11:56:00.000+01:00

http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_headline=care-crisis-as-city-staff-face-pay-cuts%26method=full%26objectid=18988067%26siteid=50061-name_page.html

Home care workers - exploited - we must stand together to gain respect!

2007-05-08T11:27:00.000+01:00

In Barnet, in Essex, in Islington, in Cornwall, in Liverpool, in Camarthenshire, in Southampton - Home care workers are being exploited and older people are being put at risk. We must stop these abuses. Home care workers must join trade unions and those trade unions must help them to organise campaigns. There is a clear link between degradation of pay and terms and conditions and degradation of services to vulnerable people. Home Care in the private sector has become the WORST employment sector in the UK. We must speak up, Home Care workers around the country must start to join together for respect for their profession.

Please join us for our CELEBRATION OF CARE, Bristol Cathedral, Friday 11th May, 6.30pm.

Please don’t expect hymns and candles – this is not a Church Service! The Celebration of Care is about Home Care, for Service Users and for the family members who care for them as well as for Home care workers.

We did it! Home Care are powerful

2007-05-04T09:36:00.000+01:00

WOW - what a result, we overturned Keily - Feruk Choudhury was elected in Easton for Labour. In Whitchurch Park, the Labour leader Helen Holland increased her majority. In Southville Labour won by just 6 votes! All were wards targetted in our campaign. Thank you Bristol, people supported us, people know that Home Care matters! The people want their Home Care service publicly owned - BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL, YOU MUST LISTEN.

We did it! 10,000 supporters in a wheelbarrow!

2007-05-02T16:44:00.000+01:00

Yesterday we handed in Bristols biggest ever local petition KEEP BRISTOL HOME CARE. There were 10,000 signatures. We delivered them in a wheelbarrow to present to Bristol's three main political parties.

Leader Barbara Janke (Lib Dem) told the local newsapaper that high quality care was their top priority (that's why they want to privatise it ?!?). Labour leader Helen Holland said: "We have been totally supportive of the carers and the service users, many of whom have contacted us and are very worried. We are doing all we can to support them."Conservative leader Richard Eddy said: "The massive support for this petition demonstrates the genuine concern within the city over the crass and insensitive way in which the Lib Dems have handled the home care issue."Immediately after the elections it is vital that the new council finds a permanent solution and genuinely listens to the trades unions and home care service users."

Today Lib Dems are putting out local election material which says: "Vote Lib Dem to save Home Care - we are not privatising Home Care and that's a promise!"

Politics can be very strange indeed. Anyway, what we have achieved is to have Home Care as the leading local issue in the elections with EVERY party in all wards talking to voters about it in their literature: Greens, Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Respect. This is unprecedented - we have achieved so much. The days and weeks after the local elections will be critical for our campaign.

March for Home Care

2007-04-26T10:43:00.000+01:00

Last Friday was a fabulous day. The sun shone on hundreds of Home Care workers as we marched brisky, peacefully, yet noisily through the inner city ward of Easton, Bristol. Songs and chants included: Vote vote vote for Feruk Choudhury, kick ol' Kiely out the door; if we had a super-gun we would shoot him up the bum and we wont deal with Kiely any more - out the door!

Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the TUC launched the march with some carefully chosen words of support and encouragement. Later, at the Rally in Easton Community Centre, our senior steward Allison Fitton read out messages of support from Care workers in America. Other speakers were Busharat Ali (Labour Candidiate for Lawrence Hill), Feruk Choudhury (Labour Candidate for Easton), Paulette North (Respect Candidate for Easton) and Paul Smith (prospective Labour MP for Bristol West). However, Stephanie Weston left many of us with tears in our eyes as she gave this speech:

"To my fellow Home Care Assistants of Bristol city council who are here and are so brave to stand up and be counted.

Every one of us carries enormous responsibilities, with pride.

We never know what we are going to come across when we start each shift. Anything could happen, and it’s down to us to sort out the crises and stay calm when others are frightened.

The people we care for are society’s hidden people. They are not customers; they are individuals who need our care. We are proud to help them to live in their own homes and support them in maintaining their dignity, pride, beliefs and independence.

If our service users are worried about anything
They talk to us
They trust us
They confide in us
And they do that because we are the friendly familiar face they see day after day and they feel secure in the fact we are part of the council and can be trusted.

People don’t trust the private sector because they know they are in it for profit. Homecare is a critically important service. We know that it should not be sold off at public action to the cheapest bidder. It is absolutely wrong that the most vulnerable members of our society should be paying the price for the council's finance problems.

If they want to cut costs then the council should start by saving the £800,000 per year that private agencies overcharge them.

Many of our service users have paid their taxes and national insurance all their lives. Most pay towards the cost of their care. And yet the council failed to consult them about the proposals to privatize a service which is a lifeline to many.

Perhaps it was an oversight
or
Perhaps they just didn’t care

Well we care!
The Councils plans are:
Ethically wrong
Socially wrong
Politically wrong

Shame on you Bristol City Council!

We are a voice for our service users and we will be heard. We will stand shoulder to shoulder with them, their families and the people of Bristol’s communities, who know the difference between right and wrong.

Councillor Keily has grabbed the headlines in today’s Evening Post offering us the chance to bid for running the Homecare business ourselves. He says it means we Home Care workers can all share in the profits.

Councillor Keily, we don’t want profits, we want decent jobs and high quality care. No one should make a profit out of care!

The Council should not underestimate our commitment to our service users. We are going to fight this privatization.

We have our service user’s support
We have massive public support
We have press support.

To my fellow Home Care workers I say:
For us to win this
Means we all must hold our heads up high
for what we do
for who we are
And how special our service is.
Don’t lose sight of it . . .

We are the women who do a job most people are not cut out to do, we are the women that most service users trust. We are the women who will not be silenced, bullied or appeased. We must Stand together and take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that the future of Home Care
Is not as a private service but a public service where the care comes before the profit.

Care is not about profit - not for us, not for anyone!

2007-04-20T11:06:00.000+01:00

As we prepare to demonstrate on our March for Home Care at 2pm today, liberal democrat councillor Mr Keily (in charge of Adult and Community Care) has grabbed the front page of the City's paper with an offer to the workers that we bid to run the Home Care service ourselves as social enterprise.
http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=144913&command=displayContent&sourceNode=231190&home=yes&more_nodeId1=144922&contentPK=17145244

He has offered us this as an opportunity to run a democratic business where all workers can share in the profits. Doesn't he get it? NO ONE SHOULD MAKE A PROFIT FROM HOME CARE!

We will continue our campaign for a publicly-owned service which is accountable to the people of Bristol and delivers high-quality care.

California's support for Keep Bristol Home Care

2007-04-17T09:08:00.000+01:00

On behalf of the 200,000 California homecare workers represented by the United Long-Term Care Workers' Union and California United Homecare Workers, we say to our homecare brothers and sisters in Bristol, England "We're With You!!!"

We stand with you in your fight to preserve quality care for the elderly and people with disabilities. We stand with you in your fight to win recognition and respect for the selfless, hard work of homecare. Your quality care brings companionship, dignity and independence to the most vulnerable people in society. There is no more important work in your community and your jobs should not be privatized.

Here in California, we are winning broader support from both Democrats and Republicans in beating back proposed cuts to homecare funding. With persistence, our voices are being heard and homecare workers are winning better wages and benefits every day.

Know that we share in your commitment and struggle and that there are 200,000 California homecare workers supporting you as you work toward what is fair, just and decent.

In Solidarity,
Tyrone Freeman
President
Long-Term Care Workers' Union
California United Homecare Workers

Washington's support for Keep Bristol Home Care

2007-04-17T09:04:00.000+01:00

Dear TGWU Sisters and Brothers,

On behalf of 30,000 unionized public and private sector home care and nursing home workers in the Washington State who are members of SEIU 775, I am writing to express our solidarity and support in your current struggle for high-quality, publicly accountable home care services in Bristol.

Home care workers perform some of the most important, and least recognized, work in our society, providing life-sustaining care to frail elderly persons and persons with disabilities. In the United States, home care workers often earn the minimum wage and have been frequently denied legal rights and protections that most other workers take for granted.

Twenty years ago, home care workers in the United States began to unite for dignity and strength through our union, SEIU, under the slogan "Invisible no more." Today, over 400,000 home care workers have joined SEIU nationally and in many cases have seen their compensation double, earning increased pay, health benefits, leave time, other benefits, and most importantly of all, recognition for the important
work that they do.

Home care workers in the United States have achieved these victories here by doing precisely what you are doing today: holding politicians accountable for high-quality care, dignified work, and the right to unite together for dignity and justice on the job.

Please accept our wishes of support and solidarity as you rally today to maintain high standards of quality care and quality jobs and do not hesitate to contact us if we can provide other support or assistance to you in your current struggle.
In Solidarity,
David Rolf
President

A MARCH FOR HOME CARE!

2007-04-13T17:03:00.000+01:00

EASTON, Bristol, Friday 20th April, 2pm
PUBLIC MARCH and RALLY
Saint Marks Road

SUPPORT THE KEEP BRISTOL HOME CARE CAMPAIGN
Assemble: Outside Sweet Mart, halfway up St Marks Rd
March with Home Care Assistants against the privatisation of Bristol City Council Care jobs. We care about older and disabled vulnerable people in your community who need our care. Join us in a peaceful march to demand quality care services, accountable to local people.
“Home Care is a critically important service, it should not be sold off at public auction to the cheapest bidder. The Council manage its own in house service properly; it is the best chance of providing a service for Bristol to be proud of. We need our service users, their families and all people in Bristol to support us. We will not abandon our service users. Please join our march and sign our online petition at: http://www.bristol.gov.uk/items/epetition.html

Families Welcome
Refreshments and Speeches at Easton Community Centre

Marching on Easton

2007-04-12T12:08:00.000+01:00

The campaign committee met and we decided to hold a march and rally in Easton next Friday. We were pleased to welcome Faruk Choudhury to our meeting and talk about developing our links with the Muslim community in the City. Faruk is the labour canditate standing against Lib Dem Cllr Keily in the Easton ward of Bristol. It is Cllr Keily who has pushed through the Council's privatisation plans. Keily is the executive member for Adult and Community Care and he hangs by a thread in his job with Labour having already decided he needs to go and the Torys putting him 'on probation'.

We will protest on Keily's home turf and the campaign committee is tasked with organising a strong turn out from the Home care Assistants for our afternoon of demonstration.

Home care assistants met last week - we are determined to step up our campaign

2007-04-12T11:51:00.000+01:00

Because we care about our service users we have been unwilling to call for industrial action, and prefer to ask the people of Bristol to support us, this should not be seen by the council as a weakness we won't be silenced or appeased and we will not go away. We will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that the future of homecare is as a public not a private service where the care comes before the profit.

Steps we are taking:

We have formed a committee of 34 Home care assistants who will lead campaign organisation

We will get involved with local council elections and back candidates who back us

We will keep positive and recognise that we are making good progress, we are proud of who we are and the jobs we do, we are proud to serve the older and disabled people of Bristol

We will gather as many signatures as possible for our petition

We need our service users, their families and all people in Bristol to support us. We are ordinary working women, we are not trouble makers, but we are not a push-over. We will not abandon our service users and we will not be bullied out of our jobs.

Please back our campaign and sign our online petition on the Council's website: http://www.bristol.gov.uk/items/epetition.html Keep Bristol Home Care. Please talk to us in the street, we wear a mint green uniform and there are hundreds of us. We need to know you care too.

Today's Editorial Comment in the Bristol Evening Post

2007-04-03T11:14:00.000+01:00

Public Issues over private Home Care

The issues over bringing in more private firms to provide Home Care services has undergone a further twist. After the protests, debates and finally, a Cabinet decision, comes the disclosure that the city council is overpaying home care companies to the tune of £800,000 a year.

And the news that it is looking at bringing in an electronic monitoring system to ensure that this does not happen in the future will undermine the confidence people are being asked to have in a wholly private home care service.

Basically, this means that currently the city council is paying almost £1 million a year too much for the private services it recieves. How on earth can such overpayments have been allowed to happen?

Is this proof of what can go wrong when a city council gives up running its own service? The city council has argued that buying home care service will not only be cheaper but that the standard of service will be the same. That is a difficult arguement to sustain given this latest revelation.

And it will give the opponents of this switch to privately provided home care services more concern and arguements to use in their continued campaign. But equally significant it raises cause for concern about the relationship between the city council and those who deliver these services.

See: http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=144913&command=displayContent&sourceNode=231190&home=yes&more_nodeId1=144922&contentPK=17017085

Home Care Assistants meet this week to step up campaign

2007-04-03T10:39:00.000+01:00

At a series of meetings in community locations across the City, Home Care Assistants will express their bitter disappointment at the Council’s decision to privatise and their determination to keep the issue in the forefront of voters’ minds in the run up to local elections.
The Transport and General Workers Union has lodged a dispute with Bristol City Council on behalf of all the trade unions representing the workers, the vast majority of whom are women.
Over the past 12 months hundreds have volunteered to change their working hours to enable the council controlled service to operate from 7am – 11pm for 365 days a year. In the past few weeks they have staged four mass demonstrations and leafleted supermarket shoppers, football fans and local residents. The Council should NOT underestimate the determination of the Home Care Assistants to keep their jobs and protect their service users. We will continue to campaign for a providing an in-house, first class care for vulnerable people in Bristol.

The meetings will take place:
Tuesday 3rd April, Rose Green Centre, 1pm
Wednesday 4th April, Southville Centre, 1pm
Thursday 5th April, BAWA Club, 1pm

Homecarers 'Giving it Large'

2007-03-29T10:00:00.000+01:00

A fantastic turnout from Home care Assistants at today's (27th March) full cabinet meeting. Singing, shouting and making themselves heard, 150 of the women turned out at lunchtime joined by service users and other trade unionists. Lining the busy street outside the Council House, Home care Assistants urged passing motorists to honk their horns in support. As the meeting began we packed the public gallery - some had to stand because space was so limited. The Cabinet member responsible for Adult Community Care, Cllr Keily walked in to take his seat to a chorus of 'Keily Out!' and a wall of slow hand clapping.

Stephanie Weston delivered her statement to the Council with dignity and passion. She recieved a standing ovation from everyone in the public gallery and many Councillors in the chamber below stood up to applaud her too for her powerful contribution (read script in post below). After a couple of supportive statements from labour Councillors Holland and Stone, the meeting took a remarkable turn . . .

Councillor from both Labour and Tories moved for a motion of no confidence in the Executive member for Adult Community Care. As it turned out, the Tories abstained from voting so Keily scraped through, but interestingly he didnt command a majority. Of the 60 Councillors only 26 voted to support him but it was enough to outweigh the 22 who voted for him to go.

Our campaign is going really well, we have public support, we have media support, we have service user support, we have the Council clearly rattled. Lets keep up the pressure!

Steph speaks to Council on behalf of Home care Assistants and Service Users

2007-03-29T09:43:00.000+01:00

Stephanie Weston, Homecare Assistant and Shop Steward, gives a TV interview before her address to Councillors at the last full council meeting of this financial year:

Her speech. I address this full Council meeting because the financial year has been a complete disaster for the Older vulnerable people of Bristol. On behalf of the Homecare Assistants of the City I offer you this message:

We are disgusted at how we have been treated
We know the public has been misled
We know that service users are at risk
We will not give up fighting for our service users’ right to high quality care.
We will not be bullied out of our decent, public sector jobs, and cast aside into the private sector

We have repeatedly told Cabinet that there are problems with private sector carers. We have given them case after case of workers not knowing how to use a hoist, not knowing what a catheter bag is or a dossett box, almost unbelievably not knowing how to use a microwave.

I list below recent instances when private agency workers have failed turn up in the very sheltered housing unit where I work.

Agency staff arrived over three hours late
Service users didn't get morning medication prompt or breakfast until Council Homecare was alerted at 11am by an angry service user who was still awaiting care. By the time the agency staff had arrived the majority of the work had been covered by your in-house team.

Agency staff failed to arrive for a morning shift
Resulting in the Council Homecare having to scrabble around to fit in the extra work load and an extra member of staff being drafted in on their day off.

Agency staff failed to arrive for an afternoon / evening shift
After the agency member of staff failed to arrive for the start of the shift at 3pm our line manager called the agency to be told that the member of staff was on the way but may be late because of the bus. Our manager phoned them again at 4pm because the agency staff had still not arrived and was told that they didn't know where she was but would send another member of staff within the hour.

Despite promises throughout the evening no agency worker arrived which again caused inconvenience to the service users, extra workload to the member of staff who was on duty and compromised their safety and resulted in a member of staff coming in on her night off.

On all of the above occasions Bristol city home care stepped into the breach, working extra hours, covering extra workload.

On all of the above occasions the agency could not account for the whereabouts of its staff.

We have provided information about the massive turnover in agency staff. CSCI reports repeatedly criticise private agencies for arriving late for service user appointments or even not at all. When one of my own service users became a victim of private agency incompetence the worker did not bother to try and coax her out of bed in the morning and did not encourage her to take her tablets. As a consequence I found her at lunchtime, soaked in urine and struggling to sit upright with no pain relief. The Council has a recruitment freeze on in Home care, to cover a colleague’s maternity leave we have welcomed with open arms 12 different agency workers in just over 8 weeks. Yes, 12 different people to cover the work of one regular, friendly, reliable well-known face. Remember we work with people with dementia, recovering from strokes, the terminally ill. Is it right that they constantly open the door to complete strangers who are often not even in uniform?

So to bring you bang up to date, just this weekend a private agency Homecare has caused an injury to a service user and an injury to a Council Homecare on the same day because they failed to follow the correct manual handling procedure when using a hoist. These workers are not trained adequately, they are not paid adequately, they are not screened adequately, they are not supervised adequately – is it any wonder they are cheaper?

Homecare is a critically important service it should not be sold off at public auction to the cheapest bidder. The Council should be able to manage its own in house service properly; it is your best chance of providing a service to be proud of. In matters of the protection of vulnerable adults, when things go wrong the Council is blamed for its failure to monitor and oversee contracts properly and a multi-agency approach is blamed for failure to communicate properly. When things go wrong people die.

We already have 50% of the service in the private agencies – why can’t we keep 50% in house?

The Officers of the Council admit that the private agencies are overcharging them by at least £800,000 per year.

Part of my role as a Council Homecare is to provide a link between the Adult and Community Care directorate and the service user. If we are farmed out this link will be lost forever and our service users left vulnerable. Strong communication is vital to protect vulnerable adults. In house Homecare provides a lifeline to service users, if they are worried about anything they talk to us and they confide in us and they do that because we are part of the Council and they know that we act on things. The bottom line is that people don’t trust the private sector because they know they are in it for profit. It is just plain wrong for the Council to put cost cutting before the care of Bristol’s most vulnerable people.

You are at your last Council meeting of the year, no doubt thinking about the upcoming local elections. We are thinking about the upcoming local elections too and we will not go away. We will fight for our jobs and our service users. Any one of you who sits quietly and does not speak out against this wrong-headed privatisation is as guilty as the cabinet and the senior officers of Adult Community Care.

Please support Bristol City Council’s Homecare Assistants; please stand up for older and vulnerable people in our City.

Trade Union Statement made to Bristol's ruling Lib Dem Cabinet

2007-03-27T11:46:00.000+01:00

Statement to Cabinet 22nd March 2007

Alun Beynon on behalf of the Transport and General Workers Union

This new report is even more of a shambles than the last. We have moved from vagueness about TUPE and firmness about savings; to vagueness about savings and firmness about TUPE ++. However, the Cabinet remains in an untenable position. Given half decent management, the price of an hour of Homecare is dependent upon labour costs. Therefore it is disingenuous to argue that you can protect terms and conditions, including those of new staff, while promising savings which will be spent on more care.

The Homecare workers know that transfer to the private sector would put them in a perilous position. TUPE ++ offers no guarantee of security and when the Council no longer directly employs staff it carries no liability either for making sure TUPE++ prevails or for equal pay. The likelihood is that, if transferred, these loyal women workers, will either be driven out of their jobs or suffer detrimental changes to their pay and conditions.

The independent sector is full of bad employers. The Council’s own research has established that all those aspects of terms and conditions of employment which mark out a bad employer from a good one, are prevalent within this group. Poor pay, no sick pay, holidays fixed at the statutory minimum, no travelling time between service users, no pensions and minimal training. The contrast with the Council’s terms and conditions is stark and illuminating.

However, it’s not too late for the Cabinet to see sense and to acknowledge that the way forward for any socially responsible politician will be to engage with their employees and their representative trade unions. At long last, the Homecare Business Unit is now well managed but years of incompetence will take time to put right. We are making real progress with improvements. In good faith, hundreds of Homecare Assistants have changed their hours of work and modernised their work practises. This management are trying to regain the confidence of employees who have lost trust in the Council, because for many years they were treated an inconvenient burden rather than as dedicated Care professionals. It is vital that trust is rebuilt and, provided this report is rejected, the trade unions will commit themselves to working with the management to ensure that high quality, cost effective care becomes a hallmark of the trust between Bristol City Council and its in-house provision.