Unite, the UK’s leading union, has today (29 July) responded to prime minister Andy Burnham's speech on adult social care.

Four in five UK adults will need care during their lives, while hundreds of thousands of workers pay for their relatives’ social care privately, causing huge financial strain.

Workers in social care and older people are being let down.

Instead of investing in people, successive governments have allowed private equity firms and shareholders to strip millions out of a service that should exist to care for people, not generate profits.

In the UK, 83 per cent of adult care home beds are in the private sector and more than a third of profits from public care spending goes to private equity firms or investors in offshore tax havens.

It has been estimated that around one in seven people aged 65 and over face lifetime care costs of more than £100,000.

The current system has left older people denied the dignity in later life they deserve, families selling their homes to pay for care and care workers, many of which are Unite members, keeping the system afloat while being overworked, underpaid and undervalued.

Andy Burnham's plans to launch formal cross-party discussions on social care reform are welcome. Unite believes this is a moment that must be grasped to address the deepening crisis in care.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: "Workers in social care and pensioners have been badly let down for years and years. Pure and simple.

“Britain's social care system is a national disgrace. It has been turned into a cash cow for profiteers making money on the back of people’s suffering. Fixing social care will need a serious plan with real money, that puts workers, pensioners and everyday people first, not the profiteers.

"The end goal must be to build a publicly owned National Care Service that both invests in care workers, so they have the decent pay, respect and secure jobs they deserve and gives our older population their dignity.

"Today’s intervention by Andy Burnham clearly puts this issue as a top priority for his government, which is to be welcomed.

"The task now is to make sure the mistakes of the past are not repeated. The thorny issue of how this is paid for must be wrestled to the ground for the vision to become a reality.

"The current situation for workers in the sector and for pensioners is not sustainable.”

Following Unite’s successful Winter Fuel campaign, Unite has launched Stand Up for Social Care.

The key campaign demands are: 

• Ending profiteering in care

• Fair funding of social care and development of a National Care Service which pays its workforce a decent wage and respects the role of care workers and gives pensioners back their dignity

In the meantime, immediate actions need to take place including regulation and accountability, empowering existing structures to hold private firms accountable for failures and financing local authorities to take over ownership of firms where highly leveraged companies have or failed or are highly likely to fail. Also, a cap on the amount individuals have to spend on care in their lifetimes.

Unite will be giving evidence at Baroness Casey's independent commission.

As part of the campaign, Unite is also launching a landmark survey of its members and the general public to understand the impact of social care privatisation, cuts, and underfunding.

ENDS

Notes to editors

For media enquiries ONLY please contact Unite press officer Natasha Wynarczyk on 07970081524

Email: natasha.wynarczyk@unitetheunion.org