Liverpool council announce home care worker job losses

Sep 2 2008 by Laura Sharpe

ALMOST half of Liverpool's 'home care' workers are going to loose their jobs in a second round of cuts to the service.

The city council is axing 125 jobs from its team of 256 staff who provide care including help with bathing, toileting and preparing meals.

Last year 167 staff took redundancies following a review which revealed their were too many staff for the 285 people across the city who need long term assistance.

Joe Blott, assistant executive director for adult social care, said there had been a drop in demand from 5,700 hours of care per week to just 2,700, meaning there were too many staff.

He said: "There is an national trend for council's to support people in their own homes and since 2004 all the new cases of people needing home care have been given to the independent sector so we have seen a deterioration of numbers.

"We have eight independent service providers operating across the city and we monitor them constantly. We want to maintain continuity of care for our 285 users and the service they receive won't be affected by theses changes.

"We have asked staff to express an interest in applying for voluntary redundancy a helpline will be set up to support staff and we will begin consultation with the unions ."