Gill Oliver studies a home care project that is reaping rewards for clients and staff alike

To be two years past your 100th birthday and still in your own home is quite an achievement.

That’s the happy situation for Dan Knowles’ grandmother Mary, who has a carer come to her flat three times a week.

Former John Lewis director Mr Knowles passionately believes every pensioner in Oxfordshire should have the option of quality home care and it’s the vision which spurred him to set up Kidlington-based Mary Knowles Care three years ago.

“Quality of life is almost always better in your own home,” he said.

“There are people who get to a stage where going into a care home is right for them, but for many, that is avoidable.”

It also tends to be cheaper for the tax payer if people can be cared for in their own homes, rather than become hospital ‘bed blockers’.

The care industry, along with catering and childcare, has traditionally worked on small profit margins achieved partly through low wages.

That’s not how Mr Knowles has chosen to do it – he pays well above the minimum wage.

The lowest rate any staff are on is £8 an hour for a junior carer and it averages out as £9.20 across the 40-strong staff.

Mr Knowles explained: “It’s about having a sustainable business, so our policy is to pay staff as well as we can, given the constraints of the market.”

Mary Knowles is also unusual in that it is employee owned.

He added: “What better than the carers themselves sharing in the success of their hard work and professionalism?”

In June, the firm awarded its first employee bonus, distributing £5,500 among 40 employees.

He explained: “It’s about recruitment, retention and the quality of the service.

“It’s about having a well-trained, happy, well-rewarded staff and the ethos is that if we look after our staff well, our staff will look after our clients well.”

He added: “Oxfordshire is a high employment county and people have a choice about where they want to work.

“Carers are heroes and they do an amazing job but sometimes they don’t get paid as much as they should.”

There is no doubt low pay and poor working conditions are a problem in the industry.

Carrien Chittock, 39, from Abingdon, has worked in the home care industry for 20 years and left a rival firm to join Mary Knowles where she is a supervisor.

She believes low pay harms quality of service.

But although more money was attractive, her decision was more about uncompromisingly short visiting slots. One company with many social services clients and carers asked staff to log in and log out for 15-minute slots, during which time staff were expected to prepare a meal, give medication and make a cup of tea.

She added: “If you were there five minutes over time you had to have a reason.

“Mary Knowles doesn’t have 15-minute slots and if I am running late, I am running late.

“I don’t like to rush the client. I’d rather call the next client and say ‘don’t worry, I am coming but I’ll be a bit later’.

“As long as I get a certain amount of money a month I’m happy – it’s about the satisfaction of the job.”

According to research by the UK Homecare Association, many independent and voluntary sector home care providers are paid such low fees by local authorities that they could be forced into handing back contracts or going out of business, It surveyed 500 firms, two-thirds of which work with local authorities, and many had handed back contracts to local authorities because they were not economically viable. But there are worries that as wages and, therefore, costs rise, more care providers will quit the sector.

At the beginning of this month, the national minimum wage went up to £6.70 per hour for workers aged 21 or over and £5.30 an hour for 18 to 20-year-olds.

In April it goes up to £7.20 per hour for over-25s and to £9 per hour by 2020.

Mr Knowles is worried about the twin challenges of an ageing population and higher wages.

He believes most care providers make a “fair” rather than an “exorbitant” profit from home care contracts, so if pay goes up, costs will go up and quality may, in some cases, go down.

He pointed out: “Local authorities are going to have to pay for an even larger number of people to be cared for and a larger number of carers’ wages will be put up in line with the minimum wage. Where will that money come from?

“Local authority budgets are being cut, not increased.

“I wonder about the quality of care that might, or might not be, given in the future.”