- Conference
- 2010 National Women's Conference
- Date
- 16 October 2009
- Decision
- Carried
Conference will be aware of the major changes that are being introduced to social care, both in the policy direction and provision of social care. This was originally piloted in local government and is now being extended into the health service affecting thousands of our members the vast majority of whom are women. These changes affect women not only as providers of services but as users of those services and carers in their own right. One and a half million work full time, and eighty nine per cent of working carers are women.
Local authorities are focusing on various forms of “cash for care”, direct payments, personal budgets, and individual budgets. This shift in the way care is organised and paid for will have a huge implication for many of our women members. All our members in social care are affected including:
1)Home care
2)Social Workers
3)Occupational Therapists
4)Day service staff
5)Care assistants
6)Admin support staff and managers
In the health service, the Department of Health has now provisionally selected 68 pilot sites in England and to test direct payments in the NHS, offering personal health budgets for NHS continuing healthcare, long term conditions, mental health services, end of life care, obesity and substance misuse. UNISON has demanded that the pilots are subjected to a rigorous evaluation, which will include looking at the impact on staff as well as service users. The pilots will run for three years, UNISON is lobbying MPs and the House of Lords to scrap the introduction of direct payments and to ensure that where personal budget pilots do go ahead rigorous evaluation will take place before they are continued with or rolled out further. Direct payments will compromise the founding principles of the NHS: free, comprehensive, universal and funded. These developments are intended to increase the involvement of private and independent providers.
UNISON is funding a research project on the cost efficiency claims of personalisation which includes an advertising campaign for the public in receipt of social and home care. This is equally important for our own women members who are affected either in their work or personal lives. Women predominantly still provide the majority of caring roles in society.
Some of the issues for staff include:
a)accountability/responsibility
b)employment issues
c)training and development
d)workforce planning
e)terms and conditions
f)equalities
The personalisation agenda has huge implications for our women members. Equality of access to care is paramount to women. One of the concerns around personalisation is the potential for those who can afford it to top up their budget, but for those who cannot afford this, especially at a time of recession, this will lead to two tiered system, adding further stress to women carers. Equality of care has to be available to all on an equal footing.
This National Women’s Conference calls on the National Women’s Committee to:
i)Work with UNISON’s campaign team on personalisation to include the impact on women.
ii)Publicise to our women members the implications of personalisation as service providers and service users.
iii)Produce publicity materials aimed at our women members particularly around personalisation and equality.
iv)Encourage women members to contact UNISON about their experiences as employees and as carers associated with personalisation.
v)Encourage women members to lobby their MPs and to work with Labour Link on this issue.