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The Prime Minister announced that each of the care workers in Wales will receive a £ 500 bonus to reflect their “worth” during the coronavirus pandemic.
Mark Drakeford said the payments would be made to about 64,000 homeworkers and homecare workers who provide “scaffolding” of services across the country.
He said Friday in the Welsh government’s Covid-19 daily briefing: “This payment is designed to provide further recognition of the value we attach to everything they are doing.”
The move follows the Scottish government’s announcement last month that all care workers in Scottish care workers will receive a 3.3 percent pay increase in recognition of their role in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Department of Health and Social Welfare, nor its counterpart in Northern Ireland, has not announced a similar bonus or pay increase for English or Northern Irish care workers.
This despite calls from union leaders and a leading homecare provider last month for staff to receive a pay rise.
The Prime Minister announced that each of the care workers in Wales will receive a £ 500 bonus to reflect their “worth” during the coronavirus pandemic. Pictured: Staff at the Morel Court Nursing Home in Penarth, South Wales joined the weekly ‘Caregiver Slap’ on Thursday
Drakeford added about Welsh care workers: “ This group of people, usually women, often underpaid, is providing the invisible scaffolding of services that support both our NHS and our society at large.
“Without this small army of people, large numbers of people would not be able to continue living independently at home, or receive daily support with basic needs living in a residential care home.”
Drakeford noted that part of the welfare workforce was among the lowest paid in Wales, and that the image contrasted with the Welsh NHS, where there are wage bands and the wages paid are at or above minimum wage.
Mark Drakeford said the payments would be made to about 64,000 homeworkers and homecare workers who provide ‘scaffolding’ of services across the country.
It also called on the UK Government to waive the single payment national tax and insurance deductions, on the grounds that the country was experiencing “exceptional circumstances”.
Local authorities are expected to administer the payments, but no date was given on when they will be made.
The Northern Ireland Department of Health and Social Assistance and the Department of Health have been contacted for comment.
Last month the St John Care Trust, which operates 70 care homes in the UK, wrote to care minister Helen Whateley asking the government to fund a new £ 11.50 minimum hourly wage for aid workers during the COVID-19 period.
The move follows the Scottish government’s announcement last month that all care workers in Scottish care workers will receive a 3.3 percent pay increase in recognition of their role in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. In the photo: Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon
The average pay rate for a care worker in the freelance sector is £ 8.10 per hour, according to Skills for Care.
But Health Secretary Matt Hancock said “now is not the time to start a salary negotiation” when asked by BBC journalist Andrew Marr if nurses should receive a salary increase amid the coronavirus crisis.
He said, ‘Well look, everyone wants to support our nurses right now, and I’m sure there will be a time to discuss things like that.
‘Right now, what we are working on is how to overcome this.
And so you know that I am very sympathetic to that argument, but now is not the time to start a salary negotiation.
“Now is the time for everyone to do their best.”
On Wednesday, a leading statistician said more people could be dying of coronavirus in nursing homes than in hospitals.
The Department of Health and Social Welfare, nor its counterpart in Northern Ireland, has not announced a similar bonus or pay increase for English or Northern Irish care workers.
Sir David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University made the surprising claim yesterday after the Bureau of National Statistics released its weekly data showing that thousands of people die outside the hospital and are not counted until weeks later.
The professor, a highly regarded statistical expert and OBE recipient, said he believes the number of deaths in care homes continues to rise as government statistics show that hospital deaths are on the decline.
He spoke of “massive and unprecedented spikes” in the number of people dying in nursing homes.
The number of residents dying from any cause has nearly tripled in a month, from about 2,500 a week in March to 7,300 in a single week in April; more than 2,000 of the latter were confirmed cases of COVID-19.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said “now is not the time to start a salary negotiation” when BBC journalist Andrew Marr asked if nurses should receive a salary increase amid the coronavirus crisis.
Reports from the Quality of Care Commission (CQC) suggest that care homes are now seeing around 400 deaths from coronavirus each day, on average, a figure similar to that of hospitals in England .
On Friday, the UK announced 739 more coronavirus deaths, bringing Britain’s official death toll to 27,510.
Authorities also recorded another 6,000 cases, with 177,000 Britons infected since the crisis began in February, but the lack of evidence means that millions of cases have potentially been lost.
Hancock revealed the figures, which include deaths in all settings, at tonight’s Downing Street press conference.
Officials do not provide a daily breakdown of how many COVID-19 deaths occurred in different settings, such as hospitals or nursing homes.
But at least 352 of the deaths occurred in hospitals because the NHS England reveals new deaths recorded by trusts every afternoon.
Scotland (40), Northern Ireland (18) and Wales (17) include all deaths in nursing homes in their daily updates, but their accounts do not necessarily align with the official count provided by the Department of Health due to how it is they register.
The ministers finally gave in to mounting pressure to include COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes in this week’s daily updates, amid claims that thousands of victims were missed.
The revised count added nearly 4,000 more deaths to the historical figure.
Care England Executive Director Professor Martin Green said the peak of coronavirus-related deaths in nursing homes could be months away.
When asked how far back the hospital care sector is in hospital deaths, he said: “We are very far away because, despite what the Secretary of Health says, that we are always considered a priority, we clearly do not. we were. “
“We clearly were not at the center of this pandemic. So I think the government must understand that if they knew in January that we were the high-risk area.
“And it’s pretty clear from the start of this that people with long-term and underlying health conditions were the most vulnerable, where every person in a nursing home falls into that category, so why wasn’t the quickest response? “
Estimating a time scale for the care home peak, he said: “I think it will probably, hopefully, be weeks, but could potentially be months.”
On Friday, the UK announced 739 more coronavirus deaths, bringing Britain’s official death toll to 27,510.
