A social care charity that has services in Manchester, Community Integrated Care, has announced it will pay its frontline Support Workers £10 per hour in England and £11 per hour in Scotland from 1^st April 2022.

The uplift, which is the second in six months for Community Integrated Care’s 5,000 strong workforce, will see the charity pay more than both the Government’s National Living Wage¹ and the voluntary real Living Wage as recommended by the Living Wage Foundation².

The move represents a further £3 million investment from the organisation, in addition to £5 million already spent improving employee pay, reward and wellbeing in Autumn 2021³, reflecting the charity’s commitments to frontline recognition under its new Best Lives Possible five-year strategy.

As the UK faces a looming cost-of-living crisis, with the price of goods, energy and household bills continuing to climb and inflation at a 30-year high, it is hoped that the rise will help alleviate some of the worry facing Community Integrated Care’s frontline workforce.

This industry-leading rate of pay means that a frontline Support Worker in England working 40 hours per week will now receive a boost of an extra £625 per year. There will be equivalent uplifts for the charity’s Advanced Support Worker roles and Nurses.

Mark Adams, Chief Executive Officer at Community Integrated Care said:

“As the social care sector continues its battle with low pay and skills shortages, our charity is proud to be in a position where we can go some way in fulfilling our commitment to valuing and rewarding our colleagues fairly for the outstanding work they do.

But we know that for many providers, this is an impossibility, tightly bound by the Government’s funding constraints and a recruitment crisis that is buckling our sector. Whilst short-term tweaks such as scrapping mandatory vaccination and easing immigration, may make headlines, latest figures show that vacancies rose from 9.4% to 9.5%⁴ between December 2021 and January 2022 – highlighting that this crisis is neither slowing, or going.

We urgently need action from central government, including sustainable funding and an effective workforce strategy, to address the significant challenges social care is facing. In the meantime, our charity will continue to campaign for real change, so that these rates become the norm and not the exception in our sector.”

Teresa Exelby, Chief People Officer at Community Integrated Care added:

“Throughout the most testing two years in recent history, our caring and committed colleagues have continued to provide life-enhancing support to thousands of people in our local communities. The world has changed immeasurably within this period and even now, as we emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic, our colleagues are grappling with steep increases to the costs of living, leaving many people understandably anxious about what lies ahead.

Whilst we know there’s no quick fix to these issues, we hope that this £3 million investment goes some small way in making daily life easier for our teams, demonstrating our commitment to making our Best Lives Possible strategy a reality for not only the people we support, but our colleagues too.”

Community Integrated Care supports 2,500 people and employs 5,000 colleagues nationally. To find out more about the charity’s vacancies, and what it’s like to work for Community Integrated Care, visit www.workincare.co.uk.