'We need to pay care workers more. Clapping isn’t enough', says Care Workers Charity chief in podcast

Karolina Gerlich came to the UK from Poland at the age of 18 as a care worker. In just over a decade she has become the figurehead of the Care Workers Charity raising over £2m for care workers during the pandemic.

On the Let’s Talk About Care podcast, she reveals why she became a care worker, what drives her to fight for better rights and pay for care workers and how she is “very disappointed” by the government’s attitude towards social care.

Ms Gerlich says: “I came to the UK at the age of 18. It was intended to be a one year break to learn the language and 13 years later here I am.”

In that time she has worked in both home care and live-in-care, been the chief executive of the National Association of Care and Support Workers for three years and in March this year, she took over as executive director of the Care Workers Charity (CWC).

As head of the CWC, she has succeeded in spearheading a fundraising campaign which ended up topping two million pounds and highlighted problems with the immigration bill on Channel 4 News. She has also hosted a zoom call with Prince William and a group of care workers to highlight the work they have been doing to combat the virus and keep people safe.

We talked to her about the immigration bill which will prevent foreign workers coming to Britain if they earn below £25,600.

Her antipathy toward the policy is palpable. “My main issue is about classifying care workers as low skilled. I think that is the biggest problem. It sets a very bad tone about the perceptions that the government has of care workers.

“Not recognising care workers as essential for the wellbeing of society. I find it very disappointing.

“Now more than ever we need to recognise that care workers make a huge contribution to people’s lives, health, economy, society. Care workers are the people at the front line of fighting coronavirus and have always done amazing things, especially so in the last few months.

“The fact that the immigration bill hasn’t been changed in the light of what has happened in the last few months is very disappointing and very worrying,” she says.

The Care Workers Charity was set up to provide crisis grants for things such as broken white goods, rental arrears and loss of income. However this year, it has diversified, sadly now having to help with funeral costs for care workers and their families.

“When I took over as executive director in March we decided we need to address the COVID crisis, especially with care workers being low paid and on the front line and at that time with really no testing and very little or no PPE available and potentially at risk of contracting the virus.”

“The majority of the money we have paid out has been for self-isolation. For someone on low wages to lose two weeks' pay can have catastrophic consequences.

“We have also paid out quite a big amount of money for shielding.”

As well as distributing crisis grants, the CWC has been giving out a childcare grant and is planning to offer a mental health grant to help care workers cope with some of the experiences they have been through during the pandemic.

Many care workers have had to deal with death on a scale they have never before witnessed. “The pressure, the anxiety that the whole situation has created in all of that, to go out and put a smile on your face and support other people’s wellbeing. I can’t imagine anything more important you can do,” says Ms Gerlich.

Even people’s normally mundane journeys into work have been a sobering experience.

“I was going to do a care visit on a Friday morning and just travelling on the London tube during lockdown was a surreal experience. It was freaking me out. It felt like it was the apocalypse. Empty tube trains even during rush hour. That in itself was terrifying,” reveals Ms Gerlich.

She believes that as a charity, their purpose is to support care workers financially but “we also do our best to champion all the hard and amazing work that care workers do”.

“Yes we did have a lot of extra positive press around social care but it wasn’t enough, there is never enough. Clapping isn’t enough.

“We have to think about the financial wellbeing of care workers as that affects everything else. We really must start paying care workers more.

“What is still being shown at the top government level is that they don’t have a full understanding what social care is and how it works.”

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