Press release: Crisis in Social Care in Nottinghamshire

PRESS RELEASE
FROM: NOTTINGHAMSHIRE UNISON
TO: ALL LOCAL MEDIA
DATE:30th August 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE USE

---

Crisis in Social Care in Nottinghamshire

Nottinghamshire UNISON today called on the County Council to act to stop the decline in services to the elderly and the vulnerable in the County as a result of the Council’s budget crisis.

Following the statement by Notts Coroner, Dr Nigel Chapman, about the risks of untrained carers assisting with medication, officers of Nottinghamshire UNISON (the biggest union at the County Council) told how they regularly get phone calls from members with horror stories of neglect after services have moved from the Council to private sector providers following the budget cuts announced earlier this year.

“Our members are telling us about instances where the private Care Worker fails to show up, where the elderly lie in faeces and urine or where they miss more than one daily meal. This is not an acceptable way to treat the elderly and the most vulnerable in our community” said Grace Perry, UNISON’s Joint Social Services Convenor.

“UNISON is warning the Council that they need to address how the private companies they employ operate. We are worried that if they do not stop privatising Social Care in this County there will be deaths, misery, despair, loneliness, hospitalisation, disease, etc.” she added. “UNISON is clear that the money for public services should be spent on those services, not have a percentage raked off to pay the shareholders of the private companies that then fail to deliver what they have promised. UNISON has long campaigned against the argument that private companies can provide high quality services at a much cheaper cost than the public sector. The comment from a private sector company based in Mapperly that they need more money to pay for training (NEP 29th August 2006) highlights what happens if the private sector goes for the lowest possible tender to win a contract. If they don’t include enough money for training in their bid, then they can’t provide training for their staff, and the public suffer.”

Ms Perry went on to call for Public Services to be properly funded. “Some people think that their Council Tax is too high. If you want decent public services delivered by properly trained people on a decent wage, we all need to start paying for them. Is it too much to ask that we all pay to protect and support the elderly population of Nottinghamshire? After all it will be us one day. We should be ashamed of ourselves if we just sit back while our parents and grandparents suffer. They deserve high quality public services delivered by highly professional staff. They deserve staff who are:

• Fully trained or are being trained.
• Experienced
• Professional
• Checked by the Criminal Records Bureau
• Employed after being interviewed, with references required
• Trained in Health and Safety Practices, given full training to understand equipment, disease, infection.
• Paid to National Standards
• Required to follow strict codes of practice, discipline, responsibility.

Is that too much to ask for your parents and grandparents?”

UNISON has launched a petition against the cuts in Home Care, Day Care and Meals on Wheels, and is asking the public to sign up to protest to Councillors. “We launched the petition on our stall at the Riverside Festival in Nottingham and had dozens of people sign up. We want the people of Notts to join us in opposing these cuts. Copies of the petition can be obtained from Nottinghamshire UNISON” said Ms Perry.

---

Further Info:

Contacts via Branch office on 0115 9810405:

Grace Perry, Joint Convenor Social Services (mob: 07894886274)
Linda Davy, Senior Steward for Home Care (mob: 07841270802)
Peter Thorpe, Branch Chair

Copies of the petition can be obtained by:

• downloading from: www.nottsunison.org.uk
• ringing: 0115 9810405
• e-mailing: branch.office@nottsunison.org.uk
• writing to us: 39 Loughborough Road, West Bridgford, Nottingham NG2 7LJ

Reggae Industry and homophobia

New Nation newpaper on 17 July 2006 ran a front page report headed "Reggae War Is Back On" after gay campaigners put pressure on music venues to prevent certain artists performing. There had been an agreement in place whereby dancehall artists refrained from using homophobic lyrics but gay campaigners said the agreement had been broken after Buju Banton, Beenie Man and Bounty Killer had made homophobic comments in Jamaica. DJ Doctah X (a community radio DJ) said "this takes away our democratic right to speak about gays". Peter Tatchell (Gay rights campaigner) wants a guarantee from the artists that "they won't perform these songs or make public statements encouraging violence against gays and lesbians anywhere in the world".

As an Equalities Officer with Unison I work with all strands of equalities, race, sexual orientation, gender, age, disability and religion and belief. The different areas can sometimes be difficult to balance especially where there are conflicting views held.

What do you think about this story?

Selwyn Seymour
Joint Equalities Officer
Notts County Unison

August Branch Committee meeting

Each year, the August Branch Committee meeting is held at the Education unit in Bestwood Park.

The meeting, open to all stewards in the Branch, is held in the morning and is followed by a lunchtime barbeque as a way of thanking stewards for all the hard work they do on behalf of members.

It also gives stewards and Branch Officers an opportunity to visit the tree we planted in memory of former Branch Chair, Bob Moody who was a ranger at the Park.

This year, the rain held off long enough for everyone to have something to eat and for most to visit the tree after the meeting, before heading back to work or the Branch Office.

---

For larger versions of each photo, please click on it.

Workforce Monitoring - Update

Since I became LGBT officer I have been aware of issues about the way equalities monitoring information is held by Notts County Council. Last year the Council extended its monitoring to include sexual orientation and gender identity questions however this was simply added to information already collected on race etc without any consideration of the sensitivity and need for confidentiality to be assured. I discovered that information was held on staff personnel files and these files could be accessed by line managers.

I have raised this at a meeting of the Corporate Equalities Group LGBT subgroup and stressed the need for further confidentiality measures to be incorporated into monitoring information in order to ensure staff are not inadvertantly "outed" I also pointed out that the Council could in fact be breaching data protection requirements.

Following this meeting it was agreed that from 24th July paper copies of monitoring information would no longer be held on personnel files. It has also been agreed to build in extra password protection for the data which is held electronically, this is currently being investigated. However this is a big step forward and I hope to be able to report full success in this matter in the near future.

I have also asked for an investigation into the problem of school based staff where job applications are returned directly to the school involved as this clearly means that monitoring information will be seen by people involved in recruitment and this issue will need addressing in order to protect the individual's rights to privacy.

I will continue to update you as further news is received on this.

Let me know if you have had any problems with this type of monitoring or have concerns about confidentiality of your personal information.

Siobhan

Down by the Riverside

The Branch sponsored the Bandstand at this year's Nottingham Riverside Festival, and Sunday 6th August saw several volunteers give up their afternoon to help run the stall.

The Region kindly supplied the marquee, and we supplied the balloons and sweets for the children (of all ages). We also handed out "spikeys". These are small plastic stoppers that go in the top of your bottle when you are in a pub or club and prevent people spiking your drink with drugs. Visitors were also given "goody bags" with application forms inside.

While we had people's attention with the freebies, we asked them to sign two petitions: one against the cuts in the NHS and one against the cuts in NCC Social Services.

We filled many sheets, and had lots of supportive comments from members of the public as well as members of UNISON from Council and Health Branches around the country.

The picture below is of a UNISON member from Exeter who visited the stall and chatted about how they are facing similar problems in the South West. She decided to pass the afternoon in the sun making a daisy chain of balloons.

The Branch leaflets and petition about the crisis facing Social Care in Notts with the major budget cuts that were on the stall in the marquee are all available to download:

NCC faces biggest financial crisis in its history (pdf)

Public Services not Private profit (pdf)

Petition for you to print off and circulate (MS Word doc)

For details of the NHS leaflets and petition that were on the stall: click here

AND we recruited a new member for UNISON (though not for our Branch) when a young man approached the stall for an application form to join UNISON as he had just started working for the Police force as a civilian. We gave him a regional application form and helped him fill it in there and then.

---

For bigger versions of the photos, just click on them

LGBT SOG Meeting - 17 August

Attention all LGBT SOG Members

The next meeting will be held at 4.30pm on the 17th August.

This meeting will decide on the delegation for the conference in November and report back from July's meeting.

If you wish to attend please contact me on 0115 9810405 and I will let you have the details.

Siobhan Ford
LGBT Officer
Notts County Unison