ONE QUARTER of home carers said they have made mistakes at work due to fatigue caused by controversial shift patterns.

Now union bosses have demanded an end to '7 on/7 off' rotas that force staff to work 70 hours one week then take seven days off.

GMB Scotland surveyed Cordia home care staff and found three quarters are in favour of scrapping the shifts.

With Cordia moving back into the control of Glasgow City Council, the union is calling for bosses to redesign working hours.

GMB Scotland Organiser Rhea Wolfson said: "As part of the return of home care to full council control, it should be a priority of the council to work with our members, introduce a more manageable working week that allows staff to do their job without detriment to their health and safety and their ability to make a decent living.

"Glasgow’s home carers are overworked, stressed and underpaid - it’s an untold story of Glasgow’s austerity shame.

"This is a workforce that is almost exclusively women and they deserve fair work and equal pay, not another decade of delay and decay.”

The survey showed 53 per cent of members felt worked to exhaustion on the last day of their shift pattern with 50 per cent of members feeling they were likely to make mistakes due to fatigue.

Some 24 per cent of members said they had made mistakes due to fatigue while 27 per cent of members had taken time off due to stress as a result of their shift pattern.

And 74 per cent of members were in favour of scrapping the ‘7 on/7 off’ shift pattern.

Cordia home care services will return to council control later this year.

Negotiations are ongoing around equal pay claims affecting thousands of home care staff and the failure to scrap the unequal Workplace, Pay and Benefits Review (WPBR) system, previously judged as ‘unfit for purpose’ by the Court of Session.

Ms Wolfson added: “This a sobering glimpse into the hard truth about working in home care and the challenges facing the staff and their services after a decade of austerity.

"What our members are telling the council is that they are on the brink against the backdrop of this regressive shift pattern, the unpaid working-time it imposes and the ongoing failure of the council to scrap the grossly unequal WPBR system."

A Glasgow City Council spokesman said: “A paper on the future of services currently delivered by Cordia will be considered by members on Thursday.

"While it would not be appropriate to pre-empt the committee’s decision, the administration has always been clear that, should those services return to the core council, there would need to be further discussion with trades unions and staff regarding terms and conditions.”