#TUC13 Congress Fringe "Whole person care - a future for health & social care?

This fringe took place on Monday evening. TUC Assistant General Secretary Paul Nowak chaired. 

Andy Burham MP was running a little late, so UNISON AGS (and former nurse) Karen Jenning started the event.

She said that the problems between Health and Social Care has been going on for decades. She used as an example the age old dispute of who pays for a health or a social services bath for a client.

If the NHS recommend this then it is free, if  it is social services, then this same bath could be means tested!

While she is explaining this, Andy Burnham comes into the meeting. Karen apologies for starting without him and he says "just carry on". Karen says that is okay since, I have just been very horrible about you! (joke)

Andy spoke about the 2009-2012 - 66% rise in the very elderly A&E admittance via ambulance. Hospitals are becoming warehouses for old people. We need instead to invest in preventive care to also save money.  

The Tories are running down the NHS. According to them "GPs are to blame for A&E waits" while all nurses are "uncaring" and hospitals are just "coasting".

The press and Tories criticised the last Labour Government proposal on this issue as the "death tax".  Yet we now have already the dementia tax,  Which is surely worse? Andy also reaffirmed his pledge to abolish the Tory Health and Social Care Bill and that the NHS will be the preferred provider in any future Labour NHS reforms.

Andy made it clear that markets are not the answer in health and social care. The UK is one of the few countries to spend under 10% of GDP on health care because it has such an efficient national service. 

Justin Bowen from the GMB  (another former Tower Hamlets bod) said that Andy's comments was music to his ears. The problem however is money. Health and social care reforms will not be totally cost neutral. It will cost more. The crisis in social care now is all about money.

Andy countered by saying that there will be huge savings by bring together health and social care but also provided people knew what they would get, they would be willing to pay more for quality services.  

My question to Andy and the panel was about the present decimation of wages in the social care sector (I mentioned the disgrace at the "charity" Future Directions which he was well aware of)  and what are we going to do about future pay in the voluntary care sector?  Much of which is minimum wage.

I think it is fair to say that Andy was very supportive about the need to have decent pay in our sector but he and Labour are not yet in power.  So, roll on 2015.  

#UNDC13 Pay & Privatisation Fringe - Wednesday Lunchtime

For some reason I forgot to take a picture of this lunch time fringe? First off was UNISON Assistant General Secretary, Karen Jennings, who opened this important fringe on Pay & Privatisation by making the arguments against the lies and propaganda of the Daily Mail & Taxpayers (aka Evaders) Alliance and dispel the myth that in the public sector "pay" is more than in the private sector. You have to measure like with like.

A recent report by Swansea University showed that in the public sector workers are actually paid 2% less than in the private sector. You need to fully job evaluate jobs in both sectors to properly compare. If you do this you see massive pay advantages in the private sector and especially in manufacturing.

Remember it is a fiction that the public sector are paid more.

UNISON National officer Gavin Edwards from the "Bargaining and Support unit" detailed what they can do to help branches and stewards. You can get background information and local reports on private sector bidders for public contracts and find out what has gone wrong with these contractors elsewhere. Email the unit and you will get a report back also they have access to the IDS pay data base so you can compare and contrast pay rates.

UNISON Community Conference 2013: Day 1

This is the seminar and conference for UNISON Community members who work in the Voluntary and Housing Association Sector which opened Friday afternoon in Manchester and finished (early) 5pm Saturday.

The first speaker was Karen Jennings, UNISON Assistant General Secretary seen in picture with the Service Group Executive Chair, Kevin Jackson and National Officer Simon Watson.

Karen describes herself as an unusual trade unionist since she is softly spoken. Her message however was pretty forthright and direct. The next few years are going to be tough and we are going to have to fight to protect members but if we cannot improve our union density then we will have no voice and no strength.

Next speaker was James Meadway, from the New Economics Foundation on "The Financial Crisis". James started off by hoping he would not depress us too much. I thought that he didn't and actually he raised hopes by pretty much abolishing the Tory led Government case for austerity and gave delegates the ammunition for arguing that there is a different way of running our economy. The last thing you should in a recession when there is no demand is cut government spending. What should be done instead is reverse austerity; redistribution of income; import less and democratise finance (break up banks).

After this we had a presentation by West Midlands Community branch about the highs and lows of setting up a regional wide branch.  That is a single branch for all UNISON members in the region who work in our sector (Voluntary organisations and housing associations).  Hats off to regional activists and staff who have obviously worked their socks off to get the branch up and running and to the National union for being prepared to seed fund it. It is still early days but it is a leading model of branch organisation and every other branch with community members can learn from it.

Finally there were separate regional meetings of delegates to welcome everybody and explain about conference business (speaking on motions, picking up voting cards, split votes etc) and a chance for branch representatives to decide what motions to support and to plan who will speak on what).  The London meeting also had a far ranging debate about putting our Community world to rights.

Despite the rain, a Friday night in Manchester City centre is always a good night out and I ended up with my Wexford born Branch Chair in a St Patrick's Day (or rather week) beer tent outside the Town Hall listening to live Irish music and drinking Guinness. Not sure it was the best preparation for my pension’s speech the following day...

Update: see UNISONactive take