A national charity boss has hit out at shocking levels of in-work poverty among care workers on the frontline of the fight against coronavirus.

Theresa Shearer, CEO of Enable Scotland, a charity that campaigns for and supports people with learning disabilities, says government and policymakers need to get the basics right.

She said: “We need to get to a level where care workers are not accessing food banks, are not accessing emergency loans, and where care workers are not trying to juggle two or three jobs in order to feed their families.”

Nearly one in five social care workers are in in-work poverty, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

“I appreciate what people say about people coming to work for things more than salary. They come to work for personal fulfilment, purpose, the work they do,” the charity boss told healthandcare.scot.

“All of that is true when you reach a certain level of income –  but you cannot work effectively if you’re worried about paying your bills and you are in what is effectively an in-work poverty situation.”

There are even concerns that the sector could lose staff to supermarket chains that are hiking wages during the crisis.

She says: “That’s not to say working in Tesco is any less important than working in care. It’s not suggesting that for a second.

“But there are things that we do in care that are more akin to health work – so actually the training, the complexity and the responsibility on an individual level is quite different.”

In Scotland the government has provided extra funding to pay the living wage but the cash could be tied up in lengthy negotiations with councils for up to nine months before it gets to frontline workers.

This year the Scottish Government bypassed this and brought an annual pay rise forward with immediate effect.

Although the crisis has increased the prominence of care and support there have still been reports of care workers being told supermarket priority hours are only for NHS staff.

England’s health secretary recently highlighted a ‘care badge’ to raise the prominence of the sector and what its staff do..

Ms Shearer says she welcomes the idea of a care brand that people recognise but believes “you can’t put the cart before the horse - we need to sort out the terms and conditions first.”

“There’s no point putting the cherry on the cake before you bake the cake.”

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