Embargoed until 00:001 Thursday 17 July 2025
The Homecare Association today endorses the Health Foundation's stark findings on poverty among residential care workers but warns that the exclusion of domiciliary care likely significantly underestimates the true scale of deprivation across the social care workforce.
The Health Foundation's report reveals that 1 in 5 residential care workers live in poverty, with particularly severe impacts on migrant workers and families. However, the research focused only on residential care settings, excluding hundreds of thousands of workers providing care in people's own homes.
"We welcome this important research, but the reality is that poverty and deprivation are likely even more severe among homecare workers," said Dr Jane Townson OBE, CEO of the Homecare Association. "The precarious nature of domiciliary care work, with fragmented schedules, unpaid travel time, and minute-by-minute commissioning, creates the conditions for in-work poverty."
Zero-hours commissioning drives zero-hours employment
Homecare Association research, published in June 2025, reveals the mathematical impossibility facing the sector. It calculates a minimum sustainable price for homecare at £32.14 per hour, yet public bodies are paying an average of £24.10 per hour, with some as low as £18 per hour.
"Local authorities and the NHS pay for homecare by the minute, stopping payment the moment someone goes into hospital, and capping rates below the cost of legal employment. They have encouraged over-supply to drive prices down and contract with too many providers, so none have enough hours to ensure workers have full rotas" said Dr Townson. "This drives insecure and inadequate income, leading to the poverty that the Health Foundation has so powerfully documented."
The Association's research shows 27% of homecare contracts pay fee rates below £22.71 per hour – insufficient even to cover the statutory employment costs of paying care workers the National Living Wage, leaving less than nothing to contribute to other running costs.
Employment Rights Bill insufficient alone
While welcoming Labour's Employment Rights Bill, the Homecare Association warns that employment conditions in homecare cannot improve without fundamental reform of funding and commissioning.
"How can providers guarantee hours when commissioners use 'zero-hours commissioning'? How can Fair Pay Agreements deliver better wages when fee rates don't even cover minimum wage costs?" said Dr Townson. "The Employment Rights Bill addresses symptoms, not causes. We need commissioners to stop creating conditions where exploitation and unsafe care are inevitable."
Call for action
The Homecare Association calls for immediate action on three fronts:
Adequate Funding: Ring-fence social care budgets and invest at least £1.6 billion to meet historic funding deficits, with a national contract setting sustainable fee rates.
Reformed Commissioning: End the daily auction of care packages to the lowest bidder. Organise care delivery geographically to enable efficient rotas and shift-based rather than minute-by-minute payment.
Long-term Planning: Implement a 10-year workforce plan including pay parity with equivalent NHS roles and statutory workforce strategy.
"The Health Foundation has shown us the human cost of political neglect," concluded Dr Townson. "But their findings likely represent just the tip of the iceberg. For homecare workers paid by the minute with unpaid gaps between visits, poverty isn't a risk – it's a mathematical certainty under current commissioning practices."
"The time for tinkering at the edges has passed. We need radical reform that creates a care system built on sustainable funding, ethical commissioning, and genuine accountability."
ENDS
