Home Instead is proud to have joined the Providers Unite Day of Action in London.
With approximately 131,000 open vacancies in social care in England and a rapidly-ageing population, action needs to be taken now to future-proof our sector and ensure it is able to support families with quality care, delivered by a trained and motivated workforce.
Since last year’s budget, our sector has been calling for a review of the increase in Employer’s National Insurance which it feels is a barrier to recruitment.
Providers Unite amplifies the essential role the sector provides in community care (valued at £68.1m), the significant savings provided to the NHS and the support the sector offers to millions of families. And, of course, the jobs of its dedicated workforce of 1.59m.
Three members of our Executive Leadership Team, Ruth Brown, Chief Operating Officer; Sanjeev Kaushal, Director of Care and Quality and Michelle Begley, International Marketing Director along with Home Instead franchise owners from across the country, traveled to London to lend their voices to the campaign.
We stood shoulder to shoulder with the Homecare Association and colleagues from the sector, as well as Pip Wilkins, CEO of the British Franchise Association, to demand solutions to the social care funding crisis and an immediate review of the measures laid out in Chancellor, Rachel Reeves’ budget.
Our sector provides a lifeline for vulnerable people, supporting them to live well at home, in their local communities. We’re highlighting how much value social care delivers to the nation.
The results of the budget measures will be families unable to access high-quality care, and providers having to restrict recruitment at a time when we desperately need to attract more people into the sector and when demand is soaring.
Speaking about the day of action, Ruth Brown, COO of Home Instead UK, said, “We are proud to be adding our voice to that of our colleagues from across the care sector in London.
“It simply doesn’t make sense that our sector is caught up in, and will be penalised by, measures introduced in the budget which we see as a tax on recruitment that will only serve to restrict providers’ recruitment ability and ambitions.
“The social care sector should be incentivised to recruit and train care professionals.
“The NHS is committed to providing more care in the community – as is the government. Why punish the very people who can support this aspiration?”
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