We sign open letter to Government

Community Integrated Care’s CEO, Mark Adams, has joined former health and care ministers, charities and the UK’s largest social care union, in co-signing an open letter to Government calling for immediate action on pay in the sector.

The Future Social Care Coalition (FSCC) has written to the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, urging him to act immediately to avert a winter social care crisis.

The FSCC – an alliance of more than 80 organisations and individuals – has appealed to Mr Sunak to address low pay among care workers, ahead of the expected publication of the government’s Adult Social Care White Paper, due this month.

Social care employs 1.5million people in the UK, but there are more than 100,000 vacancies (and rising) as we enter the winter period.

The Coalition has long advocated for pay for care and support workers to be immediately raised to the Real Living Wage, and brought in-line with NHS pay grades by 2024.

Community Integrated Care’s ‘Unfair To Care’ report is specifically referenced in the letter to the Chancellor, supporting the argument that frontline care and support workers receive an unjust deal. The research, which was released in July this year, provides empirical evidence that carers working in roles with equivalent scope, complexity and accountability would receive as much as 39% more – over £7,000 per year – if employed in the NHS.

In the letter, the FSCC impresses upon the Chancellor the need to “respect and reward” all working on the “forgotten frontline” of social care, stating: “It has never been clearer that they warrant and deserve a fair deal.”

You can read the full letter here.