Letter: The withdrawal of the long-promised Real Living Wage funding for independent care staff is a serious breach of trust

As I approached retirement from my years as a school principal, I once told an assembly of A-level students—half in jest—that I hoped plenty of them would become doctors or nurses.

At the time, standing on the brink of older age myself, those felt like the professions that would matter most to people of my generation. I may have unfairly poked fun at solicitors and accountants that day, but the sentiment behind the joke came from a genuine appreciation of our health service.

What I didn’t fully grasp then, but have come to understand since stepping away from the school gates, is that the backbone of care in Northern Ireland isn’t only formed by highly qualified clinicians. It is held together, day after day, by the dedicated care workers who support older people and those with disabilities with patience, skill and humanity. They don’t do the job for status or career progression. They do it because the individuals they look after rely on them utterly.

That is why the recent withdrawal of the long-promised Real Living Wage funding for independent care staff feels like such a serious breach of trust. After clear commitments from the Department of Health, reversing course at the last moment is not simply a policy rethink—it is a blow to a workforce that has been overstretched, undervalued and underpaid for far too long.

Care workers are not an optional add-on to our health system. Without them, hospital discharges stall, families struggle, and vulnerable people lose the ability to remain in their own homes. Praising nurses and doctors while neglecting the people who make their work possible betrays a profound misunderstanding of how interconnected the whole system is.

If we are serious about dignity for older people, about joined-up health and social care, and about basic fairness, then honouring the Real Living Wage commitment is not merely desirable—it is essential.

Enda Cullen, Tullysaran, Armagh