Page 57 - Unfair To Care 2024 - Who Cares Wins

8.
MOBILISING THE SOCIAL CARE VOTE
2024 IS A GENERAL ELECTION YEAR IN WHICH PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATES AND POLITICAL PARTIES ACROSS THE BOARD WILL, INEVITABLY, BE ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT THEY WOULD DO TO IMPROVE THE SOCIAL CARE SYSTEM GENERALLY AND IMPROVE THE PAY OF CARE AND SUPPORT WORKERS SPECIFICALLY.
Many people who will be casting their vote in the 2024 General Election will have direct experience of social care services in different ways - as a receiver of social care, as a social care worker, as an unpaid family carer, or as someone with a disability. Many more will have indirect experience of social care services through what they see and hear during their relationships with people in the care system as a relative, friend, or neighbour.
SECTION 8: MOBILISING THE SOCIAL CARE VOTE
PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR FAIR PAY IS VERY HIGH AND GROWING
63. 64.
Unfair To Care 2022/23 – www.unfairtocare.co.uk
All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 1,798 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between
9th - 10th January 2024. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all adults in England (aged 18+) 57
In January 2024, Community Integrated Care commissioned YouGov to explore this issue in an exclusive national opinion poll of adults in England. In a survey designed by us – and reflective of polling questions asked for last year’s Unfair To Care report63 – we put the following key questions to the public64:
1. How important, if at all, do you think (a) social care workers, and (b) NHS workers, are to UK society?
2. There is currently a shortage of social care workers in the UK. How much of a problem, if at all, do you think that this is?
3. Do you, a family member or close friend, access social care services? And if so, have you or they experienced any negative impacts as a result?
4. Thinking about a scenario where a social care worker and an NHS worker were doing jobs that had equivalent skills, complexity, and responsibilities, which one should earn more, or should they both earn the same?
5. Based on what you know about how much social care workers earn, do you think they are generally, underpaid, overpaid, or paid about the right salary?
6. Would you have a more or less favourable view of a political party if they committed to improving pay and conditions for social care workers, or would it make no difference?
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