One hundred community carers are to benefit from a new payment scheme that has been launched by Trackars Healthcare. The company will now remunerate their workers for their travel time between service users’ calls and their mileage.
As the first Northern Irish healthcare provider to offer the combined payment for mileage and travel time, from February 2017, Trackars’ full and part-time community carers stand to benefit an average pay increase of 10-18% on their weekly wage following the introduction of the new payment plan.
Patricia Casement, Managing Director of Trackars Healthcare, said: “There are thousands of healthcare workers in Northern Ireland, who are delivering vital care work every day in communities in Northern Ireland.
“With our aging population, ‘at home’ care is helping elderly and vulnerable people here to maintain as independent lives as possible, whilst remaining at home. Therefore, we recognise and appreciate the instrumental work which our care workers undertake daily.
Speaking about the reasons underpinning the introduction of this payment, which will cost the company on average £152,316 per annum, Patricia Casement added: “Aligned to our company values, it has always been our goal to ensure that our high standards are also implemented with regards to staff remuneration.
“That is why we’ve decided to become the first healthcare agency in Northern Ireland to pay travel time and mileage, ensuring that our team is properly rewarded for all of the hours that they spend both delivering services and travelling to and from calls.”
Being introduced at the beginning of February, a bespoke software system was developed over the last few months to calculate and manage payment for mileage and travel times based on individual rotas.
This will ensure that all staff members automatically receive their additional payments as part of their weekly salary without having to keep a record of their own daily travel times and mileage.
Registered care worker, Annmarie Quinn from Downpatrick, said: “It’s commonplace for care workers in Northern Ireland not to receive any remuneration for the time and fuel that it takes to travel between service users’ calls. For myself, this equates to approximately ten hours’ travel time, therefore to be paid for this will make a huge difference to my salary.”
Founded in 2006 by Registered Nurse, Patricia Casement, Trackars provides healthcare and nursing services to users throughout Northern Ireland as well as providing staffing solutions to the Belfast, Northern, South Eastern and Southern Health and Social Care Trusts in Northern Ireland.
In 2016, the company opened a new office in Downpatrick and announced the recruitment of a further forty jobs.
To find out more about Trackars Healthcare, visit:
or call 028 9033 2190.
