Page 5 - Unfair-To-Care-22-23-Flipbook

SECTION 1: WELCOME
MARY WOODALL,
SELF-ADVOCATE
REPRESENTATIVE
“My name is Mary. I live in Supported Living and I’m a self-advocate member of Learning Disability England’s Representative Body.
As well as this, I am a member of self-advocacy group Campaign 4 Change and co-production group Unity. I have a physical disability and a learning disability.
This important report highlights that Support Workers, including PAs, should be paid fairly. Low wages and difficulties recruiting and keeping staff don’t just impact them and the organisations they work for, it affects consistent, high-quality support that we need to live our lives, delivered by people we know and trust.
The report ties in with ‘Good Lives: Building Change Together’ – a framework which brings people together to share ideas of what it would take for people with learning disabilities to live a good life. It says “invest properly in all support services” and “enable pay and conditions for the social care workforce to reflect their value as ‘key workers”.
I hope that Unfair To Care 2022/23 helps create the change we need so Support Workers and PAs are properly recognised and valued and paid the Real Living Wage and beyond.”
VIC RAYNER, CEO
“This is a really valuable report, building on the benchmarking work delivered last year by Community Integrated Care. It brings together insights from across the care and support sector which highlight, yet again, the level of skill needed to be a care and support worker and just how demanding it is
to provide high quality, person centred care and support. Unfair To Care also offers some very powerful stories from care and support workers, highlighting how difficult it is to remain in a job they love because of the current low levels of pay and the rising cost of living.
The public perception research by Ipsos shows that the public believe in the importance of our social care workforce to society and all the evidence in
this reports shows the urgency of investing in that workforce now, addressing the current pay disparities and longer term planning for the future of this essential workforce.”
RHIDIAN HUGHES, CEO
“A society that values disabled and older people who draw on social care services must also value the life-improving roles that care workers fulfil. The stark reality is that the
very people that support others are themselves being forgotten.
Society works when there is redistribution and fairness and
this report lays bare the stark inequalities that care workers face in their pay. The consequences are felt for those who draw on care and support, with high turnover of staff and an ever-present challenge with recruitment and retention.
The Government can choose to act. The recommendations in this report are right and achievable, and we urge the Government to take them up fully. It is time to address the issue of pay, and to end disabled people and their care workers being left behind.”
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