Income security for homecare workers
Homecare workers are typically only paid for the time we spend in direct contact with clients, as opposed to being paid per shift. This means that whenever a client goes into hospital or passes away, we lose income until those gaps in our 'runs' can be filled.
This lack on income security makes it impossible to plan our finances and can cause us to accept more working hours than we can healthily manage, negatively impacting quality of care.
This situation leads many to leave domiciliary care in favour of employment in institutional care settings like care homes, where you are always paid for a full shift.
Aside from paying homecare workers by the shift, as is already being done by some best-practice employers, there is a simple solution which would have no impact on the cost of care either to the state or self-funded clients...
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When a client goes into hospital, it is common practice for homecare agencies to charge that client a fee to hold their regular visit times in place ready for when they come home. Yet the frontline care workers who would have been delivering the client's care typically do not receive a penny of these holdings fees: they are kept by the employer.
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We see no reason why holding fees should not be passed on to the care workers who complete the 'run' a hospitalised client is usually on.
This common-sense change would do much to improve income security for domiciliary care workers, supporting the sector's ability to recruit and retain staff.