Care Services
Cuts to social care have damaged and fragmented care in Norfolk. The government has been promising “social care reform” for years but all we have had is a sticking plaster of one-year funding, year after year. This makes it very hard to plan ahead or stabilise the situation. Waiting for the government to bring forward the promised changes should not be a reason to do nothing. With care businesses failing and staff being paid poorly there are things we can and must do immediately to improve things for the benefit of people receiving care and those working to provide it.
We will
- Fully sign-up to Unison’s ethical care charter, including a timetable for implementation of a real living wage not just for our directly employed staff but for all staff providing care on behalf of the county council
- Start a process of in-sourcing services to improve the quality, safety, stability and cost-effectiveness of care & to improve staff pay and working conditions
- To ensure a diverse and robust local care system also work alongside and support groups of people needing care, care workers and communities and support them to form care co-operatives where the local situation lends itself to that solution. Small scale local enterprises keep benefits and surplus in our local community rather than allowing big companies to asset strip
- Provide high quality training and career progression throughout the care sector
- Raise the status of care and broaden routes in to the caring profession including apprenticeships of all levels
- Challenge racism and discrimination and ensure that care workers have equal access to training and are treated well at work and work collaboratively with our trade union colleagues to achieve this
- Robustly challenge the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) to recognise the importance and contribution of the care sector to the Norfolk economy and well-being, to give it higher priority and support in their work