Low Pay Scandal at the DGH !

UNISON Hastings & Eastbourne Healthcare branch issued a Freedom Of Information request to East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs Eastbourne DGH  and the Conquest Hospital in Hastings,  to establish the numbers of staff which do not receive the Living Wage (Currently £7.85 per hour)

The Trust has provided the following information on the numbers of staff who are currently paid less than £7.85 Living Wage.

Permanent Staff
321 staff ( 267.70 whole-time equivalent)

Fixed Term Temporary Staff
18 staff

Primary Assignment "Bank" staff  (i.e. do not have a substantive post elsewhere within the Trust)
451 zero hours contract (so no whole time equivalent available.)

This equates to approx. 11% of the Trust workforce (7314).

Unison said: "This is to form a part of our campaign to urge the Trust to become a Living Wage employer with all the positive aspects which that brings. Not only for the staff involved with an increase in their pay packets, but also for the Trust in recruitment and retention. A positive news story ...for the Trust is needed now more than ever."

Other NHS Trusts locally either pay the living wage or have made commitments to do so.
Sussex Community NHS Trust has been paying the Living Wage since 2013. Sussex Partnership NHS Trust have agreed to do the same at Board Level and are currently looking at the logistics around implementation. Brighton and Hove CCG also pays the Living Wage.
Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS pay the Living Wage for all current staff other than Bank and new starters.

Care for the Care Staff !

Eastbourne has many hundreds of people working in the Social Care sector- providing vital services for our elderly and vulnerable residents.  However, conditions for many of these dedicated staff are a scandal !

Nationally, 220,000 care workers are illegally under-paid below the national minimum wage of £6.50 an hour. According to the National Audit Office 220,000 care workers are being exploited in this way.

This is in part because whilst the advertised rate may be above the minimum wage, most care workers are on zero hours or temporary agency contracts, with the employers cutting out paid time wherever they can. A full day on the job can translate into only a handful of paid hours.

In 2011 and 2013 HMRC investigated the care sector and found that only half of care providers were paying the national minimum wage. Thanks to their investigation several companies were forced to pay care workers the money that they were legally owed. 

One way employers under-pay home care workers is by only paying them for the time they spend caring for people in their own homes. This means the time they spend traveling between visits is unpaid.  Sadly many care workers are also not given enough time to care for people with dignity.

This puts care workers in an agonising position because they know they are being taken advantage of and are losing money they need for their own families, but they care deeply about the people they work with.

This sometimes puts care workers under pressure to leave their visits early to avoid having their wages pulled down.  Whereas others regularly stay longer and work for free to just make sure the person gets the care they need and deserve. 

Many good care workers get fed up with the situation and find other work, and the high turnover means a lack of continuity of care.

The Public Accounts Committee looked at the issue in the summer and said, “We are astonished that up to 220,000 care workers earn less than minimum wage and seemingly little has been done to rectify this”.
Unison has launched a petition calling on the (Lib Dem) Secretary of State for Industry to act to end this scandal.  You can sign the petition here !

Citizens UK has a major campaign calling for a charter of rights for workers in the care sector- including payment of the Living Wage.  Find out more here.