Care in crisis: East Yorkshire families offered cash to look after relatives

Families in East Yorkshire are being offered cash to look after dependent relatives – to ease the strain on under-pressure social care services.

Health bosses struggling with gaps in care because of staff absences through sickness and unfilled vacancies are now asking loved ones to step in.

They say some care homes are being forced to close because the problem is so acute.

Relatives of people needing care are now being asked to help out where they can and are being offered "financial incentives" to look after their own family members and compensate for any time off work.

It comes after the Humber Local Resilience Forum – a partnership of councils, health and emergency services – declared a major incident due to high levels of Covid-19 infection and other illnesses.

Forum chair Chris Blacksell said: "Whilst the impact of a major incident is also felt across adult social care, we have good networks and processes in place to ensure the most vulnerable people are supported and cared for and that equally families are recognised for their valuable support.”

Gill Vickers, chief executive of East Riding Council, said: "We have domiciliary care providers who cannot provide the number of hours of care that we need for people either living in the community who need support, or people coming out of hospital.

"So the whole system is really struggling."

He said declaring a major incident means services "step up" their response and "work together more effectively across multiple organisations."

Meanwhile, public health officials are considering whether to send staff who have tested positive back into care homes to ease the burden, saying they would be given full personal protective equipment if that happened.

The Department of Health and Social Care said it has provided an extra £4.5billion to the NHS to respond to Covid over the next six months.

There are efforts to encourage people back into the sector by offering extra training and asking current staff to work extended hours.

But waiting lists for social care have almost doubled in a year, according to figures obtained by ITV News. 

And Hull West and Hessle MP Emma Hardy says short-term solutions to staffing problems aren't good enough.

She said: "We started this with staff shortages at the very beginning so before we start looking towards the future, we need to start addressing some of the problems we have within the NHS.

"We can't keep asking so much from the same people over and over again. Because what we're seeing is they're exhausted, they're burnt out."