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Care bosses take home 13 x wages of workers

EXECUTIVE pay at private equity firms who own nursing homes has increased to 13 times the wages of care staff, according to new research.

Unison, which represents workers in the sector, said profit was being put before care and called for urgent reform.

Launched today, the 43-page report written by University of Surrey researchers for the union and titled Held to Ransom, reveals a “chronic and deliberate” understaffing of homes, rationing of medical supplies and food, and the falsifying of paperwork to cover up mismanagement.

Some care workers said they had to reach into their own pockets to provide residents with food and toiletries to compensate for funding shortfalls.

Unison said the massive pay rises are the result of greed, not market competition, and called for urgent reform of the crisis-hit sector before more staff quit as they struggle to cope with the soaring cost-of-living crisis.

Remuneration packages for the highest-paid bosses have increased on average from £146,100 to £296,600 between 2015 and 2020, compared with an increase from £15,400 to £22,200 for staff at the homes they run, according to Unison.

Unison general secretary Christina McAnea said: “These findings are shocking and unacceptable. These firms are paid to provide efficient and quality care but instead residents are being short-changed and staff mistreated.

“It’s costing families a lot to have their loved ones looked after. People will rightly expect that money to go on the best care, not to fund huge profits and mega salaries for care home bosses.”

“The government must bring in reforms urgently to address the role of these companies and their profiteering behaviour.”

Christine Corlet Walker, from the University of Surrey, said: “Care workers told us investment firms are using extreme strategies to cut staffing and care costs. They are holding the sector to ransom, with appalling consequences.”

Vivek Kotecha from Trinava Consulting, which helped with the report, said: “Residents and staff are feeling the pinch from cost control measures across the sector.

“Yet investment firms have managed to widen the gulf between their directors’ pay and care staff wages.”

According to the report, over one in nine care beds in the UK are in the hands of investment firms, including private equity, hedge funds and real-estate investment trusts.

 

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