Page 25 - Unfair To Care 2024 - Who Cares Wins

SECTION 5: THE RESULTS – 2023/24
However, even this gap excludes wider entitlements that are typically absent in social care, including competitive pension rates and sick pay (the Mean ‘Total Package’ of Band 3 NHS workers).
In 2023, we compared the mean ‘Total Package’ of Band 3 NHS Workers with Support Worker pay, including industry-standard pension contributions, and discovered that this was a staggering 64%.
STUBBORNLY HIGH
When we look at the comparison this year, including the £1,700 NHS bonus, it remains a
62.9%
SCOTTISH COMPARISON FOR CARE AND SUPPORT WORKERS*
* Data from Scottish government and NHS Scotland Pay Bands (Agenda for Change) 2023/24.
All of these factors exacerbate a lack of stability in the social care system and the lives of people who draw on it. They also create a talent drain from the sector into the NHS, with 17% of lower-paid social care workers moving on to nursing auxiliary and assistant roles within the NHS (i.e. positions like the Band 3 Healthcare Assistant Role)24, creating imbalance and a lack of capacity within this shared system.
Wider issues relating to the pay of frontline care and support staff also include a lack of or inadequate pay for travel time (homecare staff), as well as the overuse of zero-hour contracts.
The workforce recruitment and retention issues facing social care cannot be seen through the lens of fair pay alone. This report addresses unfair pay for care workers, but there are wider terms and working conditions,
such as career progression, skills, qualifications, and
professionalisation, that also need to be resolved in any future national pay and workforce development strategy.
There is currently no national social care workforce system of pay scales for staff in social care. Nor is there an agreed and funded national workforce strategy, although the excellent work that Skills for Care has embarked on to progress a 15-year strategy for the adult social care workforce must be acknowledged and applauded25 and the Government’s plans for a new care workforce pathway for social care for training and progression26 noted. This has long been called for by
the sector through alliances such as the Future Social Care Coalition and its proposal for a ‘People Plan for Social Care’27.
A national pay and workforce development strategy will help achieve pay parity between equivalent roles in the NHS and social care and help realise the benefits of greater integration between these two sectors.
2023/24 figures
Scottish minimum basic pay
NHS basic pay Band 3 midpoint
% difference
Difference in basic pay
Hourly pay
£10.90
£13.54
24.2%
£5,164
Annual salary
£21,313
£26,477
24.2%
Not including one-off payment of £404.00
24. 25. 26. 27.
‘Lower paid NHS and social care staff turnover’, The Health Foundation, November 2022
’A workforce strategy for adult social care’, Skills for Care, October 2023
’Care workforce pathway for adult social care: call for evidence’, Department of Health and Social Care, January 2024 ‘A social care people plan framework’, Future Social Care Coalition, June 2021
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THIS ANALYSIS EXCLUDES THE FACT THAT IN 2023/24, NHS STAFF EQUIVALENTS TO FRONTLINE CARE AND SUPPORT WORKERS EACH RECEIVED A TOTAL OF
£1,700 IN ONE-OFF BONUS PAYMENTS
Factoring this in reveals that NHS workers actually earned, on average, 44% more than their equivalent colleagues providing social care.