SLEEPOVER shifts for care workers were traditionally viewed as extra, and paid as such. A worker with a day job in a care setting might get £25-35 to do anything from being available overnight in an old people’s home, to staying in the bedroom of someone with a disability to monitor their breathing.
Often sleepovers were literally that and barring crises, a worker could expect in many cases to be sleeping. But with the arrival of the minimum wage, the shift rate began to look problematic, particularly where sleepovers were more demanding.
A crucial employment tribunal in 2014 rightly ruled such shifts were no different from regular work and therefore should attract the minimum wage If someone is required to undertake duties by an employer, unable to leave, they are working – and sleeping or not – I don’t see why that employer should pay any less than the minimum wage.
But for employers it’s a nightmare of additional cost. That’s why the Scottish Government agreed to a period of grace before the care workers’ living wage of £8.45 is applied to the salaries of affected employees. Now health secretary Shona Robison says that exemption will end by 2018/9. This has provoked anger from charity sector care providers – because they say concerns about how it is paid for have been ignored.
Annie Gunner Logan of Community Care and Support Providers Scotland says her most recent letter to Ms Robison about risks to charities and the people they support was simply ignored. Unlike employers who can attempt to increase their income in order to pay higher wages, the rates charged by care services are hugely dependent on agreements with the public sector.
So concerns about the £15m CCPS claims this will cost and the impact on services all remain to be urgently resolved.
Will overnight workers actually see the “pay boost” ministers boast of? Care providers are already being nudged to rethink sleepovers, and are doing so. An event earlier this year, hosted by Cosla heard suggestions including on-call or ‘waking night shifts’ with one worker covering a number of people. Telecare packages featured strongly – such as the idea that care users would get a tablet computer to call for help in a crisis at night.
Will people with mental health problems or complex learning disabilities be left reliant on a tablet and an app?
Meanwhile many current sleepover workers have day jobs. That won’t work if sleepovers are redesigned. We have a care worker shortage already. Where are thousands more to be found to do night shifts?
Might we see a move back towards institutionalisation of those with care needs?
That sounds alarmist. But as pressures in the care sector grow, it seems increasingly unlikely to me that we can marry ever-reducing resources with ever-increasing ambitions towards genuinely personalised services and independent living.
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