WELSH unions agreed today to launch a public campaign to remove profit from the social care system.

Unison Cymru’s motion noted that Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru had backed the idea of a national care service following Wales TUC’s call for it in 2021 — but cautioned that the Scottish experience showed the term could refer to a national commissioning service for private care providers, which would not address the crisis in social care.

“We have a profit problem,” Unison Cymru secretary Jess Turner told Congress. “Tens of thousands of women are trapped in in-work poverty, struggling to make ends meet despite working long and anti-social hours.

“The system isn’t working — and profit is the problem. The way our care system is structured is damaging people’s lives.”

Unison Cymru brought experts including Andy Mudd, head of the Association for Public Service Excellence, together at a fringe meeting detailing the way privatisation leeches money from social care, with debt-loaded care companies avoiding tax while they lower pay and conditions for workers to maximise shareholder returns.

Care home ownership is opaque, with many firms ultimately owned offshore.

“No-one really knows how much money is disappearing … tens of millions of pounds that should be invested in vital care services is being siphoned off by private equity firms based in tax havens,” Ms Turner charged, pointing out that unless the profit motive was removed even increasing funding for social care would be like trying to fill “a leaky bucket — it will not significantly improve the experience of care workers or patients.”

Maxine Butler of GMB said social care continued to deteriorate because while profit remained the aim any reforms would simply “treat the symptom, not the cause.” The current system “only serves a few individuals and hedge funds stripping all the value from it.”

And AJ LeBrun, a delegate from Rhondda Cynon Taff trades council who uses a wheelchair, said she found the idea she as a care user could be used to generate a profit rather than cared for as a human being “terrifying.

“Support this motion not just for your granddad or grandma but for people like me — anyone can become disabled,” she stressed.