Category: Covid

Blog: Matt Hancock made for grim listening at the COVID Inquiry

Matt Hancock, the man responsible for the health and care of the nation during the deadliest emergency for a century, finally gave his evidence to the COVID Inquiry this week. And it was just as grim as I’d expected.

He talked about social care like it was something he found down the back of his sofa, rather than a vital public service he was responsible for. At one point, he said: “We at the health department” – once again forgetting about social care.

He admitted he didn’t know how many care homes there were in the country when COVID hit, or how many care home residents lived in them. So how could he possibly have known where to throw that ‘protective ring’ he boasted about?

The care sector had been in crisis long before the pandemic – a crisis presided over by years of Tory mismanagement and failed political choices. This left the sector exposed to the ravages of the pandemic, right from the start.

Mr Hancock failed in his responsibility to provide enough PPE, testing and paid leave for care workers who needed to self-isolate. He was warned by UNISON, repeatedly, about the need for sick pay and yet he failed to act decisively.

When the government belatedly brought in an “infection control fund” to provide money for sick pay, UNISON care worker members told us the system didn’t work, with many still left without adequate pay. 

It’s also telling how he relied so heavily on his lack of direct control over social care as an excuse for these failings, but when he saw the vaccination programme giving the Tories a boost in the polls, he had no problem introducing the ill-advised “mandatory vaccination” in care homes, which ironically undermined the roll-out.

He found the levers to make vaccination mandatory for care workers, but not sick pay.

Even now, when the time is right for self-reflection and taking responsibility, he is dodging it and passing the buck.

There are lessons to be learnt from the inquiry. A big one is about the urgent need to fix the social care crisis. A nationally integrated, fully funded system, delivered by empowered local councils, would have ensured a secretary of state for health and social care took responsibility for the whole job. It could have saved lives, and the UK could have avoided one of the worst death rates in Europe.

UNISON’s campaign for a National Care Service got a big boost from the Fabian Society report a few weeks ago and 16,000 people have already signed our recently launched petition. If Matt Hancock showed us this week how care was so easily forgotten by Tory ministers, you can show how important it is to you, by signing our petition today.

The article Blog: Matt Hancock made for grim listening at the COVID Inquiry first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Blog: Matt Hancock made for grim listening at the COVID Inquiry

Matt Hancock, the man responsible for the health and care of the nation during the deadliest emergency for a century, finally gave his evidence to the COVID Inquiry this week. And it was just as grim as I’d expected.

He talked about social care like it was something he found down the back of his sofa, rather than a vital public service he was responsible for. At one point, he said: “We at the health department” – once again forgetting about social care.

He admitted he didn’t know how many care homes there were in the country when COVID hit, or how many care home residents lived in them. So how could he possibly have known where to throw that ‘protective ring’ he boasted about?

The care sector had been in crisis long before the pandemic – a crisis presided over by years of Tory mismanagement and failed political choices. This left the sector exposed to the ravages of the pandemic, right from the start.

Mr Hancock failed in his responsibility to provide enough PPE, testing and paid leave for care workers who needed to self-isolate. He was warned by UNISON, repeatedly, about the need for sick pay and yet he failed to act decisively.

When the government belatedly brought in an “infection control fund” to provide money for sick pay, UNISON care worker members told us the system didn’t work, with many still left without adequate pay. 

It’s also telling how he relied so heavily on his lack of direct control over social care as an excuse for these failings, but when he saw the vaccination programme giving the Tories a boost in the polls, he had no problem introducing the ill-advised “mandatory vaccination” in care homes, which ironically undermined the roll-out.

He found the levers to make vaccination mandatory for care workers, but not sick pay.

Even now, when the time is right for self-reflection and taking responsibility, he is dodging it and passing the buck.

There are lessons to be learnt from the inquiry. A big one is about the urgent need to fix the social care crisis. A nationally integrated, fully funded system, delivered by empowered local councils, would have ensured a secretary of state for health and social care took responsibility for the whole job. It could have saved lives, and the UK could have avoided one of the worst death rates in Europe.

UNISON’s campaign for a National Care Service got a big boost from the Fabian Society report a few weeks ago and 16,000 people have already signed our recently launched petition. If Matt Hancock showed us this week how care was so easily forgotten by Tory ministers, you can show how important it is to you, by signing our petition today.

The article Blog: Matt Hancock made for grim listening at the COVID Inquiry first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Blog: Matt Hancock made for grim listening at the COVID Inquiry

Matt Hancock, the man responsible for the health and care of the nation during the deadliest emergency for a century, finally gave his evidence to the COVID Inquiry this week. And it was just as grim as I’d expected.

He talked about social care like it was something he found down the back of his sofa, rather than a vital public service he was responsible for. At one point, he said: “We at the health department” – once again forgetting about social care.

He admitted he didn’t know how many care homes there were in the country when COVID hit, or how many care home residents lived in them. So how could he possibly have known where to throw that ‘protective ring’ he boasted about?

The care sector had been in crisis long before the pandemic – a crisis presided over by years of Tory mismanagement and failed political choices. This left the sector exposed to the ravages of the pandemic, right from the start.

Mr Hancock failed in his responsibility to provide enough PPE, testing and paid leave for care workers who needed to self-isolate. He was warned by UNISON, repeatedly, about the need for sick pay and yet he failed to act decisively.

When the government belatedly brought in an “infection control fund” to provide money for sick pay, UNISON care worker members told us the system didn’t work, with many still left without adequate pay. 

It’s also telling how he relied so heavily on his lack of direct control over social care as an excuse for these failings, but when he saw the vaccination programme giving the Tories a boost in the polls, he had no problem introducing the ill-advised “mandatory vaccination” in care homes, which ironically undermined the roll-out.

He found the levers to make vaccination mandatory for care workers, but not sick pay.

Even now, when the time is right for self-reflection and taking responsibility, he is dodging it and passing the buck.

There are lessons to be learnt from the inquiry. A big one is about the urgent need to fix the social care crisis. A nationally integrated, fully funded system, delivered by empowered local councils, would have ensured a secretary of state for health and social care took responsibility for the whole job. It could have saved lives, and the UK could have avoided one of the worst death rates in Europe.

UNISON’s campaign for a National Care Service got a big boost from the Fabian Society report a few weeks ago and 16,000 people have already signed our recently launched petition. If Matt Hancock showed us this week how care was so easily forgotten by Tory ministers, you can show how important it is to you, by signing our petition today.

The article Blog: Matt Hancock made for grim listening at the COVID Inquiry first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Conference urged to fight for truth and justice in COVID inquiry

UNISON’s national delegate conference in Liverpool opened its afternoon session yesterday with Professor Lynn Sudbury-Riley speaking of her work with the COVID Bereaved Families for Justice.

She opened by saying: “Today is a special day, because while there have been lots of rounds of preliminary hearings and meetings, today, the public hearings for the COVID-19 inquiry finally begin.”

She explained the importance of the inquiry to her, personally, “due to the way my lovely dad died back in March 2020 – he’d gone into the Royal Liverpool Hospital not far from here because of a foot operation a few weeks earlier.

“During those weeks, as a family we’re watching the news and seeing what’s happening in other parts of the world – especially Italy – we’re listening to what their doctors and their healthcare workers are saying, but not everyone would listen would they?”

The professor told delegates that, while her father was in hospital, and before lockdown, the Champions league match between Liverpool and Athletico Madrid went ahead, adding: “Ironically, those Madrid fans wouldn’t have been allowed to attend such a sporting event in their own country, but they were allowed to come here.”

Noting that, on 19 March 2020, the prime minister was still announcing that we could ‘turn the tide’ on COVID in just 12 weeks, she said: “Clearly our government wasn’t looking after its citizens, so we as a family decided to stop visiting our dad, no way did we want to start risking taking the virus into him. But it was to no avail.

“Lockdown eventually came on 23 March and four days later, we discovered my dad had COVID, caught in the hospital, despite our efforts as a family. We then began begging to be allowed to see him but were denied. My dad died, alone, two days later.”

Professor Sudbury-Riley spoke of her and her family’s inability to properly grieve both through the denial of normal mourning rituals, coupled with the fact that “we knew we should have been locked down earlier”.

This had compelled her to start working with the COVID Bereaved Families for Justice and how that only confirmed her and her families experiences.

Why ‘Partygate’ matters so much

“This is why ‘Partygate’ matters so much,” she continued. “To find out our government were having jollies while our families died, is beyond obscene.

“But it wasn’t just us, as families, who were enduring such horrendous experiences; you all, as public service workers, were. You too must be incandescent when you hear about their parties – how they flouted their own rules for their own pleasure.”

On the inquiry she said: “There was a very real fear among bereaved families that the inquiry would not be fair. Time and again people drew analogies with the fight for justice with the Hillsborough victims and what those families went through. And they were worried that when our inquiry came it would be a whitewash.

“Today is not just the day when the enquiry starts properly – today is a day when many of my colleagues are out there demonstrating in London. They are demonstrating about how the inquiry is already trying to exclude us, they are demonstrating against a potential whitewash.”

She highlighted that the chair of the inquiry’s fightback against the government’s obstruction of the enquiry and lack of co-operation and saying: “It provides some hope that perhaps it won’t be sanitised or useless after all, and we hope that it can get to the truth, learn lessons from the truth and save lives in the future”.

She finished by calling on delegates to keep fighting to ensure this happens: “We must keep engaging with the inquiry to shape it and point out to it when it loses its way. We must do this with all the other core participants because we are all fighting for the same thing – for truth, for justice, and we can do this in solidarity”.

The effects of the pandemic

After Professor Sudbury-Riley spoke, delegates debated a motion on the national crisis of stress and its effects on public service workers, which touched on the continuing effects of the COVID pandemic.

The mover, Becky Everitt from the East Midlands, said “As we’ve just heard from our wonderful guest speaker, COVID is still having a massive impact on our public service workers.

“It is essential that we acknowledge the toll that this pandemic has taken on the mental and physical wellbeing.”

One delegate noted that there have more people off with stress now than with physical injuries – ‘slips, trips and falls’ – calling it “a warning sign”.

The motion called on the NEC to develop a stress charter for members to hold employers to account, to support a national campaign expanding on the Be On The Safe Side campaign and to develop the work of health and safety reps and forums.

The article Conference urged to fight for truth and justice in COVID inquiry first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Covid death families have yet to claim millions in compensation

Millions of pounds of compensation promised by ministers to relatives of frontline health and social care workers who died during the pandemic may still remain unclaimed, says UNISON today (Friday).

Fewer than 800 families across England have received a £60,000 pay out each from the government’s life assurance scheme*.

Official figures show more than 2,000 deaths involving Covid occurred among health and care staff, including porters, nurses and care home employees**. Although the payments are available solely for people whose deaths were “wholly or mainly” caused by Covid, UNISON says there could still be many who fit the criteria, but whose families have yet to apply.

The 31 March deadline for applications to the scheme is just a week away and the union says grieving next of kin could be left without the money to which they are entitled, unless they apply right away.

The fund was set up in April 2020 by then health secretary Matt Hancock for relatives of workers who became infected in the line of duty, either within the NHS or in social care. The death must have occurred before March 2022 to be eligible for compensation.

Figures from the NHS Business Services Authority show that 827 claims have been made up to this month. Of these, 512 were submitted by the families of NHS staff and 294 by relatives of care workers.

Just 760 have been accepted, with 732 already receiving payment. However, 54 cases did not meet the eligibility criteria and 13 are still under consideration.

Employers including NHS trusts and social care providers were asked by the government to contact next of kin when a death occurred. The government also advised them to explain the scheme to relatives and oversee the completion of claims.

UNISON head of social care Gavin Edwards said: “Health and social care workers paid the heaviest price for simply doing their jobs during the pandemic.

“Their families deserve the financial help available, but it may be that many are still to apply. It’s vital they come forward to claim the compensation to which they’re entitled.

“Ministers could have done much more to alert families to the existence of the fund and invite them to apply.

“Some households may be facing financial hardship because death has meant a drop in income on top of the loss of a loved one. No one should miss out, particularly when so many people are struggling to make ends meet.”

Note to editors:
–*Figures are correct as of 8 March. They are from the NHS and Social Care Coronavirus Life Assurance Schemes covering England. For a claim that is accepted, the schemes make a payment of £60,000 to the estate of eligible individuals who have died from Covid contracted during their frontline essential work.
–**Provisional figures from the Office for National Statistics show that 2,009 deaths involving Covid were registered in England between 9 March 2020 and 28 February 2022. These relate to people aged 20 to 64 years.
– Anyone who thinks they might be eligible to make a claim to the NHS Coronavirus Life Assurance (England) Scheme should visit Coronavirus Life Assurance 2020 | NHSBSA.
– UNISON is the UK’s largest union with more than 1.3 million members providing public services in education, local government, the NHS, police service and energy. They are employed in the public, voluntary and private sectors.

Media contacts:
Anthony Barnes M: 07834 864794 E: a.barnes@unison.co.uk
Liz Chinchen M: 07778 158175 E: press@unison.co.uk

The article Covid death families have yet to claim millions in compensation first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Winter plan for Covid urgently needed, says UNISON

Commenting on the rise in Covid cases announced today (Friday), UNISON assistant general secretary Jon Richards said:

“Winter is coming and the virus is staging a comeback. Yet the government doesn’t appear to have a plan.

“Unless urgent action is taken, cases will surge and schools, hospitals, care homes and other key public services will be without the staff they need to function.

“Bringing back free testing is a must so people don’t unwittingly take the virus into work, school or the pub.

“A system of proper sick pay where everyone, no matter where they work, gets full pay when poorly is also long overdue.”

Notes to editors:  

– UNISON is the UK’s largest union with more than 1.3 million members providing public services in education, local government, the NHS, police service and energy. They are employed in the public, voluntary and private sectors.

Media contacts:
Liz Chinchen M: 07778 158175 E: press@unison.co.uk 
Anthony Barnes M: 07834 864794 E: a.barnes@unison.co.uk

 

The article Winter plan for Covid urgently needed, says UNISON first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Headteachers fear losing increasingly vital teaching assistants as cost-of-living pressures bite?s

Teaching assistants are still filling the gaps left by specialist staff ?during the pandemic and providing vital emotional support to students and parents, ?according to a UNISON-commissioned report ?published today (?Thursday).

From Covid to the Cost of Living provides a snapshot of the way ?Covid has fundamentally changed the role of teaching assistants, says UNISON.

The report also captures headteachers’ concerns that chronic low pay is driving more teaching assistants out of classrooms to better paid, less stressful jobs ?in other parts of the economy.

The report challenges Liz Truss’ government to do more to acknowledge, support, reward and ?train teaching assistants whose responsibilities and workloads have soared as schools struggle to help pupils catch-up in the wake of the pandemic, says UNISON.

?For the research, University of Portsmouth academics interviewed teaching assistants, teachers and school leaders at five primary schools in England. They found that teaching assistants were delivering a range of vital services and informal support to families, on top of their normal duties.

The report describes, for example, how teaching assistants regularly help parents complete benefit application forms, while others have helped set up food and clothing banks for families in financial difficulty.

Researchers also heard that teaching assistants calling parents during the pandemic to check how they were coping, were often greeted by distraught parents struggling with the stress of the lockdowns and isolation.

Teaching assistants took on specialist roles – such as delivering speech and language therapy – when expert staff couldn’t go into schools due to the lockdowns. Despite restrictions being scrapped, teaching assistants continue to carry out these roles, as demand for specialist staff outstripped supply when schools reopened.

The report also chart?s the devastating impact the cost-of-living crisis is having on teaching assistants and ?makes the ?case for staff to receive decent pay, says UNISON. ?

Support staff mentioned the high cost of fuel ?as a particular strain on their finances, ?to such an extent some said they could no longer afford to drive to work.

Headteachers are aware of the financial hit teaching assistants are taking and the impact ?on schools if staff continue to leave, says ?the report. One headteacher ?said they had been ?constantly advertising for teaching assistants since the start of the year but had only been able to fill one out of eight positions.

To halt the exodus of teaching assistants, the report recommends ministers take an urgent look at better rewarding teaching assistants, says UNISON.

The government must also invest in the workforce by creating opportunities for professional development that build on the skills staff already possess and the new responsibilities taken on since Covid struck, says the report.

UNISON head of education Mike Short said: “Teaching assistants stepped-up during the pandemic and repeatedly proved their worth, as they ?were doing long before the crisis struck.

“But chronic low pay is threatening to rob classrooms of dedicated, experienced staff, just when schools need them most.

“The report highlights the value headteachers place on teaching assistants, and the important role training ?p?lays in boosting skills, status and pay.” ?

University of Portsmouth researcher Dr Rob Webster, who co-authored the report with Dr Sophi?e Hall, said: “Schools are facing many challenges, but the consequence of the loss of teaching assistants is the most catastrophic.

“Without these staff, schools will struggle to provide adequate support to children with additional needs. Teachers’ workloads will also skyrocket, driving yet more from the profession and deterring others from joining.

“The report makes it clear that while there are things schools can do to boost staff morale, a properly funded effort to support and retain teaching assistants is urgently needed.”

Notes to editors:
– The full report, From Covid to the Cost of Living: The crises remaking the role of teaching assistants, can be read here.
– The report was commissioned by UNISON and conducted by the Education Research, Innovation and Consultancy Unit based at the University of Portsmouth between March and June 2022.
– UNISON is the UK’s largest union with more than 1.3 million members providing public services in education, local government, the NHS, police service and energy. They are employed in the public, voluntary and private sectors.

 

The article Headteachers fear losing increasingly vital teaching assistants as cost-of-living pressures bite?s first appeared on the UNISON National site.