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

I would hope so.

Agree they shouldn’t but it’s a choice isn’t it? Unless I was desperate for money and had absolutely zero other job options, I would not choose to be a carer. I couldn’t do the role at all, not even for more pay. I’d be miserable and resentful every day of my life. Would rather clean toilets. Ditto TA’s, they often choose that role rather than doing a PGCE because they want less responsibility and hours that fit better around their kids. Of course they won’t be paid the same as the actual teacher. Agree they shouldn’t be on min wage though.

He did unpaid work and training? Genuine question, is that not against the law?

Thing is I work in care and the company I work for we are Feeding tube trained , oxgen trained and have training on giving epilepsy rescue meds but are paid min wage .It is insanely hard and difficult to be making decisions on children's health and what they need when you also know that if you make the wrong decision you could end up in court .I really think companies need to look at the difference between care and nursing.

I think there should be a way to earn on the job qualifications and some career progression.

My son is doing care work but unfortunately the only progression seems to be into the office for £1 per hour more to argue with all the care staff over rotas. He has had a nightmare with his rotas so would hate to be enforcing it on others so he's happy sticking with care work for now.

Training was 3 days unpaid plus some shadowing, so he worked for several days before even qualifying for any pay. A few times per year they are called into the office for an update.

If he needs to phone the office for help and advice and gets a certain member of staff, I can hear the defensiveness and waryness in her voice. I assume she is traumatised but it makes her hard to deal with. He picked up a medical emergency last week so that's the sort of thing he really needs an extra pair of eyes on and there should be an atmosphere of support, openness and collaboration that makes calling for advice less daunting. In my opinion this us and them attitude has created a dangerous situation.

He has already had a few traumatic events and there is no support from the company to debrief, reflect and learn, but they are quick to a apportion blame.

rude

If more men were carers they would definitely be paid more. Minimum wage (in most cases) is an insult.

Really? There is 8 modules to the first level 5 qualification, I think there is 6 for a level 6, disgraceful that you don’t need to have this, care skills is one module and imperative to the job.
I know in the north of Ireland you need to be qualified or training towards a qualification.
A lot of companies will pay for the coursework if you agree to a year contract but they have to be seen to be actively working on their course work.
That’s disgraceful that some care companies are not expecting the same thing.

Excellent points. You cannot make a silk purse from a pigs ear.
The whole system needs an overhaul. Millions spent on care, someone has to fund it.
The only winners are health insurance companies, and private care homes.

you don’t need qualifications to be a care worker. I come from an estate agent back ground. The only thing I had to do when I got my care job was a first aid course. A safeguarding course and a manual handling course to learn how to use lifting equipment safely

you don’t need qualifications to be a care worker. I come from an estate agent back ground. The only thing I had to do when I got my care job was a first aid course. A safeguarding course and a manual handling course to learn how to use lifting equipment safely

My aunt has carers. I have a degree, PGCE, MSc and PhD and I consider these people more skilled than me. I can't do what they do. They get national minimum wage and it is shameful.

The agency that employ them makes the money it’s not to do with the job it’s to do with the system

I suspect the qualifications are very easy to get, as so many "unskilled" and "cheap" foreign workers do that very hard and demanding job.

Is that not the point though? I worked in the care home; I had never done care before - come from a completely different background ground. I’d been there 2 weeks and was promoted to a senior care te leader cos I showed promised and was allowed to give out medication and make decisions about minor treatment that might needed - ie does someone just need an inhaler or do they need the oxygen or do we need to call an ambulance. Now I am not young nor soft so before I took the promotion I researched everything, I learned all about what the job would entail. But I do think that care workers should have qualifications and be paid significantly more than minimum wage, in some cases I literally had people’s life in my hands and I was being paid less than if I worked in the Aldi

I think the fact that kids don't want to care for their very old and often terminally ill parents with many comorbidities is that there are strict safeguarding laws in England. A daughter has to often give up her job to care for her elderly parents full-time and if she doesn't and let's say a parent falls down and breaks her leg or misses a dose of medicine and deteriorates, the daughter can be charged for neglect. And she is basically doing that hugely responsible care work for free.
It's utterly ridiculous and I was shocked when I found out about this (I'm not from the UK).

@EmeraldShamrock000 employers have a duty of care towards their employees and the company I worked for would be absolutely clear that this lady's nails need to be cut back to a level that cannot injure anyone. Refusal to comply would mean that the family would have to do the personal care themselves

Many do enjoy the work, but the experience can also lead to other things, which is another reason why people do it.

Who thinks it’s unskilled? They have to have qualifications to do it.

A quick Google search shows that ca. 84% of carehomes in England are privately owned for profit and by many foreign owners as well. The average sector operating profit margin (measured as EBITDARM) sits at 30.1%. For the top-performing 18% of care homes, margins routinely exceed 40%. After paying everyday running costs, standard net profit margins reported on paper often look modest, generally landing between 7% and 18%. many large, private equity-backed operators intentionally minimise their reported net profit. They do this by borrowing heavily from their own offshore parent companies at inflated interest rates (often 7% to 16%). This allows them to move millions in "hidden profits" offshore as debt interest or rent payments, shielding the cash from UK tax while making the care home appear less profitable on paper. Despite rising minimum wage laws and operational costs, private care homes remain highly lucrative investments. Large, private equity-backed chains are often deliberately structured with heavy debts. The massive cash generated from self-funding residents is immediately sucked out to pay high interest to offshore parent companies or to cover expensive rental leases owned by investment landlords. To bypass domestic labour shortages without raising baseline wages for everyone, many providers have historically relied heavily on recruiting international workers under sponsored visas.

In other words - they are money-making businesses and hiring workers at minimum wage is entirely intentional to squeeze out as much profit as possible.

Its not necessarily that people don't want to but that society is set up in a different way now days.

My mum grew up with her mum doing all the caring and grandmother next door. When my own grandmother became unwell she moved in with us, my mum did the care. It was unthinkable that anything else would happen.

However with my grandmother it was a whole different scenario. She had dementia and by that point my mum needed to work. So a really difficult decision was made about care.

When it comes to my own parents and inlaws my capacity to care for them is much lower. Firstly there are smaller sibling groups and much less local. We are the closest to my inlaws and are 1.5 hrs away. I cant move to inlaws area and they cant move to ours. I simply dont have the ability not to work to complete care.

Combined with people living longer (my dgran is still about at 100, being cared for by her 80 year old child), especially living longer with more and more complex health. People are having children later so im now in the position of caring for an 80 year old whilst still having a toddler.

Its the same reason people are using things like nursery's when they used to stay home, or rely on family support.

In a not too distant future caring responsibilities were held by the women who tended to be working a lot less

For us even things like food shops are hard, I can order an online shop but its hard to have someone present for a whole delivery slot to put it away. Care services arent really set up like that

Basically Care services arent set up for what the modern world has become

It’s because it’s “women’s work”. All traditionally female work is massively undervalued.

The vast majority of key workers and support workers we work with in residential homes and adolescent supported accommodations are male.

People don't want to care for their loved ones but want excellent standards of care. They don't want to pay a lot for care and begrudge selling the family home to fund it but still want all needs met for as long as necessary. Ultimately people want the best of all worlds and we need to start making choices which aren't just that carers should be better paid, the state should pay and the inevitable tax rises shouldn't impact me or my family.

There are different levels of carers with different levels of pay usually according to experience or qualifications.
When I worked in the care industry there was a lot of training and mandatory updating of training at least yearly.
I had minimum wage for some clients, but if someone needed someone with clinical skills or complex with both mental health and clinical needs, the money would go up. Weekends and bank holidays could bump it up too.
It's definitely underpaid considering the level of skill and the level of responsibility.

As for respect, I think that was extremely variable. Mostly well respected professionally , but definitely not by everyone.

I don't think that people being on low pay means they have less responsibility.

The carers looking after people who may become volatile in the community, to the extent they are doubled up would have surely read the care plans and hopefully at least one of them knew him well.
It would be made clear in training the level of responsibility. Don't take on the job if you don't understand that

I do know that some companies are shit and put their carers in situations they shouldn't though
I've had to ring office before after being pressured to do a new client with another carer who was also new to this client and it was so stressful. I had to tell them that we didn't feel able to keep him safe and we had to take him home and try and contain him for the shift.

Depending on who is coordinating, they can really put a lot of pressure on carers especially if short staffed.