In today's media there is news that almost half of the private firms providing care for the elderly are paying less than the minimum wage to the care workers who give essential personal care to someone's mum or dad.This isn't just unfair treatment of employees but actually an illegal practice and reflects the general ethos of these "caring" companies, who also often operate on zero-hours contracts.
While Richard Preece, chairman of Allied Healthcare, announced last week that he intends to do away with these zero hours contracts, it is difficult to see how this limited gesture can improve the treatment of their ultimate customer, the frail, older person. Hopefully as the practices of these companies are more exposed by HMRC they will start to take their legal duties more seriously and respond both to the letter and spirit of the law for the benefit of our increasingly older population.
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