Aria Care Homes has announced that it has increased its pay for all team members by 30% to a new minimum hourly rate of £13.

The company, which operates the award-winning Aria Care Home in Newport, has made its largest ever increase in order to recognise that the role of care worker is significantly more skilled than the current market standard suggests, and the provider is committed to compensating its team proportionately to the work they do as part of a much wider national conversation.

Ali Al-Mufti, managing director of Aria Care Homes, said:

“We’ve waited too long for the sector to take the steps to pay our workforce correctly, so we’ve taken it upon ourselves to make the change.”

“We have to take the stand that care is skilled work with a huge responsibility. The conversation is more important than just talking about a Living Wage and helping people to make ends meet. The Living Wage could be triple what it is, it will still be the minimum level that unskilled roles can earn. That’s not how fair renumeration works.”

“Increasing rate of pay by 30% is a paradigm shift that puts our workforce ahead of other sectors that we’ve been forced to compete with.”

“We’ve been fighting to make a meaningful change in the rate of pay for years, and I’m very happy that we’ve finally been able to implement the kind of pay rise that matters.”

“I have to pay enormous gratitude to our Local Authority partners for working with us to achieve the fee increases necessary for this move. They’ve shown incredible support to us and our team and I’m extremely grateful to them.”

“The sector must now work together to re-define pay rates for our workforce. Getting Living Wage accredited is a nice thing, but people should be paid based on the skill of the work they do, not what someone else thinks is enough to live on.”

“If a small 28-bed care home can do it, everybody can. Take control and move the conversation away from arbitrary minimums.”

In addition to the large increase in pay, Arcadia provided a Cost-of-Living bonus last Autumn, as well as ongoing access to private counselling as and when a team member needs to speak with a mental health professional at any time, for any reason, with the cost met by the provider.