To think carers are classed as unskilled but expected to be skilled when things go wrong.

That's not true that no-one trains or vets them. They have to have DBS checks just like anyone else working with children/vulnerable adults.
They also have an induction process where they are trained on the job, and many have caring qualifications.
It's also not unskilled.
But yes, some are terrible. Just as some doctors, nurses, teachers etc are terrible

People are being really condescending about carers on here.

Where I work people either leave within weeks or stay for years. We have 2 new starters currently. One is really good and I think he will stay. Jury is out on the other one. She currently can only cope with working with one particular client . We have 7.

Care work is easy to get, but not easy to do... hence why there are always lots of vacancies.

Yes this I believe is true from my experience

Job Centre pushes people into care jobs too.

Yes they should get paid more.

At the same time
some Carers are terrible. They are not caring.
no one trains or vets them. Some are abusive to the clients. Also why did the government let people get a visa for this unskilled job basically opening the door to people who are not really suited to being carers but just wanted the visa.

Social care is on its knees. Severely underfunded by local authorities and not a priority for the government. Care provider funding uplifts are less than the living wage uplifts year on year. Carers are worth more but the money just isn’t there.

Could the government increase the tax allowance for carers and some other low paid but needed jobs?
As this could be an immediate increase and not reliant on individual agency’s, companies increasing wages which isn’t happening at the
moment anyway.

You're being slightly ridiculous here. Of course the people at the very top will be on a good wage as they have developed skills and abilities to command a certain salary, or are you saying they should work min wage out of the good of their heart?

Would you?

I know someone who owns a care business. They own multiple lovely homes and drive top of the range cars so 🤷‍♂️

Thats where the money goes. I’m not saying they don’t deserve to do well, they’ve worked hard but as long as people can profiteer from carework then wages will be low and charges high.

My daughter’s care home is a charity. There is no profit. They charge LAs or ICBs what the placement costs. The problems arise, when for instance Rachel Reeves raised employers’ NI and the NMW, but didn’t support care homes. Funding authorities refuse to pay the necessary uplift in the fees.

Top up fees are expressly forbidden for people on NHS Continuing Healthcare Funding anyway, which my daughter gets.

We sent her to a care home, because we couldn’t cope with the stress any more, as per my previous post - especially from the NHS.

Their employers of course. Do you know the profit people make from care homes? It astronomical. It's how Duncan Bannatyne made his fortune.

I work with vulnerable adults mostly non verbal. I am always covered in bruises and scratches. I went to the doctors the other week and was asked if I was a victim of some abuse because of the state of my arms and my husband regularly gets the side eye when we are out poor bugger.

I moved into care 3 years ago. My only qualification was having been a parent. I’ve done the care certificate but it’s online and multiple choice so not too taxing.

I go on all the training courses that my company offer but have declined to do my nvq 2 or 3 because I don’t want to do it online which is my only option.

I enjoy my job. I find it very satisfying and it has huge flexibility. Management and colleagues are incredible. We get paid above minimum wage because we are acknowledged to be a very challenging environment.

It feels like it's often similar to being a nurse. Maybe an RMN. But the pay is utter shite. I guess nurses don't even get paid enough!

Could you have afforded to top up their pay? Could your father? Genuine question. Who do you think should pay?

People are being very rude and condescending against care workers on here and it's really disheartening to see.

Having observed the incredible work that my dad's carers did when he was in a care home - not just their kindness and diligence, but also their ability to deal with emergencies and the level of responsibility they had - it enrages me that they're paid so poorly.

Some people who go into care do so because they can’t get the posh olive serving job. Their face doesn’t fit, they interview badly, their English isn’t good, their education is low, they don’t align with the retail ethos… lots of people do care work because they can’t get other work.

Obviously some people do it because they’re loving, caring individuals who see it as their vocation. But more often than not it’s an industry people join because they desperately need work and care is always hiring.

We have live in carers and pay the agency between £1700-2100. Mostly funded by the LA with a contribution from us.

The carers receive just under half of the money. It’s a bloody scandal how much the agencies keep.

I was not referring specifically to parents there; but actually when you have had carer breakdown twice as I have, and DH has had two heart attacks over the stress of two disabled DC, you realise (and get told by doctors) that the stress is killing you. I was told not to put any more stress on myself, and DH was told to control his stress. Everyone is worse off, if you end up dead in the near future.

DH paid £40,000 in tax pa for 30 years. His earnings went down during Covid, because self employed clients with no work themselves, couldn’t afford to pay him. He’s not well enough to work full time now.

The NHS was the big source of stress for me with regard to DD1, with a severe life threatening condition. A clinical nurse specialist told me, she had left the NHS, after 17 years experience, because it was too fragmented for patients like DD1 and it is.

I don’t think that it’s the case that we don’t want to care for our elders, it’s that we don’t have the capacity to do it.

My elderly dad has had 2 operations in the past 6 months and I’ve had to emotionally and physically look after him. I’ve DC still living at home doing school exams. I work FT.

I’m exhausted to the point of being ill, not spent any time with my DH or children for 9 months and whilst I’m looking after everyone else my own MH and wellbeing is being eroded. I think at some point, the sickest person in the family will be ME.

Probably growing in the back gardens of the foreign owners of these chains of care homes.🙄

The essential roles of caring for other, more vulnerable people are always far too low paid for the level of responsibility expected. These roles are usually very hard work and yet they don’t ever seem to be respected until someone needs the care themselves or for family.

The cleaners are paid minimum wage.
I’m paid 20p more. That works out to £8 a week more.

Thank god you understood what on earth they were talking about