Storm Eowyn: Home helps risking their lives for minimum wage to care, says GMB and BMA
Home helps were risking their lives for minimum wage to care for some of the most vulnerable people in society during Storm Eowyn, it has been reported.
Alan Perry, Senior Organiser with the GMB union, says he had taken calls from members who are home helps ahead of the storm.
He said members were carrying out dynamic risk assessments and that employers had a duty of care to keep them safe while they were driving around the country.
Some clients did tell their carers not to come out.
"But we're not aware of anybody who hasn't gone to work," he said.
His members were literally putting their necks on the line to go and do their job, he said.
"It is just like during Covid, where care staff and those in our essential services risked their lives day in and day out to care."
He also said that such workers do the job for minimum wage or slightly more.
"They're all minimum wage or not far off, and this is why the whole health and social care needs to be looked at to recognize these people properly."
British Medical Association spokesman Dr Alan Stout confirmed that home helps took perhap higher risks than most other NHS staff during the worst of the storm - despite being on only minimum wage.
Many of them were still driving around and climbing in and out of their cars to help the most vulnerable people in their homes during the Red Wind warning.
"Their commitment is incredible, and it highlights how the NHS really survives on that commitment in going above and beyond with exceptional people and really caring people in a crisis,” he said.
He also confirmed that the shortage of people willing to work as home helps for minimum wage is a critical weakness for NHS waiting lists.
"It is one of the big factors," he said. "The phrase I use over and over again is that we need to make sure that we have the resources and staff where we actually want our patients to be, which is out of hospital and in their own homes."