The organisation representing independent care providers across Scotland is calling on the Scottish government and local authorities  to urgently intervene amidst fears of rising petrol and diesel costs that may force some care at home providers off the road.

Scottish Care says dramatically rising costs of running a car has become an area of very real operational support for those providing critical care and support in communities.

The organisation’s Deputy CEO Karen Hedge says many staff rely on their cars not only to commute to work but to deliver services seven days a week:

“Homecare services across Scotland are already incredibly fragile due to unsustainable funding and staff shortages.

“It is crucial that they can continue delivering care, but we are already hearing instances where fuel prices are proving to be another compounding factor; staff calling in sick because they can’t afford the petrol to get to work and reliance on taxi services to get staff out to people’s homes at extortionate cost.

“The ability to pay travel costs for staff is more important than ever.

“We need the Scottish government and COSLA, on behalf of local authorities, to immediately consider what funding and support can be put in place to protect care staff from the worst of these price hikes so that they can deliver the essential care and support that our communities require.

“Otherwise, we will see a deepening of the care crisis as more dedicated and skilled staff are driven out of the care sector and services close due to inflationary costs that they simply cannot meet. We have all seen through covid-19 how essential our social care sector is – for it to be dismantled by this fuel situation would be a catastrophe and government at all levels must work with us now to prevent this happening.”

At First Minister’s Questions in the Scottish parliament today, Nicola Sturgeon was challenged by Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar to back a Labour campaign to cut VAT on fuel bills, scrap the national insurance increase, reverse the cut to universal credit and introduce a windfall tax on oil and gas companies to reduce the impact of the cost of living crisis.

The First Minister committed to “continue to do everything that we can, including the 6% increase in benefits under the control of Social Security Scotland”, and said that the parliament should unite to call on the UK Chancellor, who has control over all the items listed by Mr Sarwar, to do “much, much more” in the UK government’s spring budget statement next week.

Read more: Call for dedicated home carer 111 hotline; Home carer: We were never trained for this; Government to fund new carer fees.

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