WELSH unions called for a National Care Service in public ownership at the TUC Cymru congress in Llandudno today.

“Social care in Wales is in crisis,” Mark Evans of Swansea trades council warned. “Most if not all councils in Wales, including Labour and Plaid ones, have outsourced most of their home care domiciliary services to the private sector. Often lining the profits of private equity companies who immediately pocket 20 per cent.

“Councillors voting to outsource services have been told it saves money but this is a false economy. For a start you generally don’t get the same standard of care; there’s often a lack of continuity of care and many working in the private sector work long hours on poverty pay, often having to claim in-work benefits and pension credits when they retire.”

Care workers should earn at least £15 an hour, he said. Care workers should be treated as “dedicated professionals on good terms and conditions [with] collective bargaining agreements — to achieve that, social care needs to be brought into the public sector and provided for locally, by local authorities, without third-sector involvement.”

Social care’s crisis could not be separated from that in the NHS, which had lost 21 per cent of its beds in Wales since 2008. “Labour’s failure to protect our NHS and council budgets has led to this.”

But Plaid too could not be trusted, since its vision for a care service included roles for “social enterprises” and co-ops which, in competition with the private sector, would drive terms and conditions down. Mr Evans demanded a mass trade union-led campaign to secure more funding for Wales.

Ed James of PCS noted that the British Labour government’s changes to the definition of skilled-worker visas would worsen the recruitment crisis in health and social care.

TUC Cymru also voted to demand direct pay negotiations with Welsh government over NHS pay, rather than relying on pay review bodies.

Unison’s Dawn Ward said health workers “don’t even have a seat at the table where [pay] decisions are made” while Unite’s Sarah Davies said unions should press the new Plaid Cymru government for a fresh approach to NHS pay.