Living Wage Week: Penrose Care raises home care worker wages

Belsize Village, Hampstead, London, UK: Home care provider Penrose Care has implemented immediately the increase in the London Living Wage rate announced by Mayor of London Boris Johnson Monday morning, November 2, 2015, at Linklaters headquarters in the City of London. The new London Living Wage rate is £9.40hour from £9.15/hour.[1]

Penrose Care managing director, Robert Stephenson-Padron said:

“The Living Wage Foundation’s guidance is to phase in increases in the London Living Wage over six months, but keeping with past practice at the firm – Penrose Care has implemented the increase starting Monday morning. Our hard working care workers deserve no less.”

In October 2012, Penrose Care became one of the first four home care providers in the UK to become an Accredited Living Wage Employer out of then-nearly 6,000 providers. The Living Wage is only part of a wider ethical scheme Penrose Care adheres to called the Social Care Charter of Citizens UK. The charter also includes paying for worker travel time between visits and operating an occupational sick pay scheme.

In comparison, the National Audit Office in March 2014 released a report finding that 160,000 to 220,000 direct care workers in the UK are paid below the national minimum wage “due to deductions for uniforms or due to travel time between visits”.[2] The current national minimum wage is £6.70/hour for persons 21 and over.[3]

Penrose Care managing director, Robert Stephenson-Padron further said:

“Penrose Care continues to be an ethically and responsibly managed organisation, which during these turbulent times in the social care sector, allows us to continue leading the way on home care worker terms in conditions. This ensures we attract top calibre workers and keep them. Penrose Care has found that when we look after our social care workers well, they more than pay us back in the excellent care they provide the vulnerable persons we support every day.”

Penrose Care employees already on a wage rate higher than the London Living Wage will have their pay reviewed this month.

Employers choose to pay the Living Wage on a voluntary basis. The Living Wage enjoys cross party support, with public backing from the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. Today there are about 2,000 Accredited Living Wage Employers in the UK (2014: 1,000+, 2013: 432), up from 100 in 2012 when Penrose Care first became an Accredited Living Wage Employer.

[1] Mayor announces new London Living Wage of £9.40 per hour (Living Wage Foundation: 2 Nov 2014), available here: http://www.livingwage.org.uk/news/new-london-living-wage-rate-has-been-announced

[2] Adult social care in England: overview (National Audit Office: 13 Mar 2014), pg42, available here: http://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Adult-social-care-in-England-overview.pdf

[3] National minimum wage rates (Gov.UK, accessed 03 Nov 2015), available here: https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates

ENDS

Media Contact

Penrose Care

Robert Stephenson-Padron

robert.padron@penrosecare.co.uk

0207 435 2644

Living Wage Foundation

Emma Kosmin

emma.kosmin@livingwage.org.uk

0207 043 9882

About Penrose Care

Penrose Care is an ethical provider of home care services London, United Kingdom to adults with disabilities and elderly persons, including those with dementia.  The company operates upon a fundamental belief that to promote a caring workforce, the organisation itself must be caring. As the pioneer of ethics in home care in the UK, Penrose Care in 2012 became one of the first four providers in the country to become an Accredited Living Wage Employer and in 2013 the first independent sector provider to be compliant with Citizens UK’s landmark Social Care Charter.

Penrose Care’s ethical approach promotes higher quality social care workers and low staff turnover which in turn results in excellent care. Penrose Care is headquartered in Belsize Village, north London and was founded by Robert Stephenson-Padron, a healthcare research analyst, and Dr. Matthew Knight, a hospital consultant physician.