20 November (Part 1) - Feeling safe should be a basic requirement of care users
By the time I got back from
yesterday’s abortive shopping trip
three readers had alerted me to a report that put
Bexley in top position for making
social care users feel safe. Should they ever feel anything else? Surely feeling safe has to be a
minimum requirement? It’s obviously good to be best of the bunch but not being among those
that make care users feel unsafe is not the greatest accolade in the world.
I think I must have said before but I have a friend who is totally disabled,
it’s hard to imagine a worse situation, and Bexley council has provided every
possible care short of 24 hour attendance. Eight and sometimes more care workers
look in every single day. They are employed by contractors to Bexley council on
zero hours contracts on minimum pay out of which they have to pay all their own
expenses, travel costs etc.
My friend feels safe because ladies of all ages make visits from six in the morning until
eleven at night doing their best under working conditions I consider to be appalling. Users
of social care feel safe because the care workers rise above the problems resulting from Bexley
council’s penny pinching. Bexley councillors have boasted of paying care contractors
less than other boroughs. If they have come out on top in some survey or other
it’s the care workers who deserve the credit, not Bexley council or
cabinet member Chris Taylor.