A survey of social care pay rates has been launched by UNISON as part of its campaign for a National Care Service.

The survey by Incomes Data Research (IDR) looks at labour market pressures currently faced by providers and aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of pay and conditions for staff working in the adult social care sector in England, covering some 26 roles across residential and domiciliary care, nursing and allied health professions and community care.

Katherine Heffernan, principal researcher at IDR, said: “With a General Election due before the end of next year and the prospect of a new administration, this survey offers providers across the adult social care sector in England a real opportunity to feed into proposals that could start taking shape, at least in terms of uniform care standards and pay and conditions, in the foreseeable future.”

Shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, has commissioned the Fabian Society to research the prospect of a National Care Service with Labour still riding high in the polls.

As a ‘thank you’ for taking part, all respondents to the survey will receive a free detailed summary report with an overview of pay and benefits provision in the sector, as well as the steps providers have taken to address recruitment and retention difficulties.

“None of the pay data that individual respondents provide will be shared with UNISON or directly linked to them in the final report – we will just be reporting aggregate results such as median and average pay rates across the wider sample,” Heffernan explained.

“The survey looks quite long at first sight given the number of jobs we are benchmarking but participants can easily skip over any question that aren’t relevant to their setting. My colleagues and I are also very happy to talk through survey questions in person if preferred – our contact details are in the survey.”

The survey, which is open throughout September, can be accessed here .