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Liverpool City Council has published plans to revitalise its home-care service to help more older people live independently in their own homes, writes Haroon Ashraf.

The council said it would create a team of 150 care workers who would provide short-term intensive care for older people trying to recover their independence after an illness.

It would also establish a 400 member, community-based team who would provide practical services such as shopping, cooking, and cleaning.

“These plans will give [the team of] home care workers a real opportunity to become professionally qualified with a commensurate increase in pay,” said the council’s executive member for social care Councillor Flo Clucas.

Clucas said the remaining 400 care workers would get the same pay as before but the council would want them to expand their roles.

The proposals, which will boost the capacity of the service by 20% over the next 10 years, will allow people who currently use the service to keep their current care workers.

UNISON’s branch secretary in Liverpool Angela Blundell said, “I am glad they have come to a decision—this has been going on for 5 years. But we have got this close before and proposals have been pulled.

“The grey area is contracts for staff. The service has changed over the years. They do a lot of jobs now that professionals, such as districts nurses used to do.”

Clucas dismissed UNISON’s charge and said care workers had told her they wanted these changes.