Friend reported me to Social Services

indeed. I have been retired over 15 years from OT still apologetically ask to tie people's shoe laces if they are undone and the person is obviously unable to tie it themselves without sitting down. I have to restrain myself from commenting to people whose walking sticks are the wrong length or to wheelchair pushers who are manoevring wheelchairs wrongly. I think we are violently in agreement actually!

Sorry you were clear, I was just making the point that it's even easier for social workers to stay registered than it is for clinical staff, so many do. Honestly, I think it's probably less about any external pressure re professional standards, and more that when you've done those sort of jobs you can't switch off that training, it's drilled into you!

Yes Nurses and clinicians generally can maintain their CPD for longish periods without being in employment and often do between jobs for various reasons. I was actually talking about someone like the OP's "friend" who has retired. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

That's not been required for a long time, not under SWE or HCPC (I think the requirements under GSCC were more stringent). You can use anonymised practice examines in your CPD when you re-register, but the way the requirements are written they're actually easier to meet by reflecting on training courses, research articles and reflective discussions with other professionals, all of which can be done without being in practice. Obviously if you're not in a social work role you have to be proactive to achieve that, but it's pretty straightforward.

I’m probably out of date as I have been retired for a while but I recall having to give examples from practice when I renewed my registration (Wales)

Says who? In England and Wales you can, it may be different elsewhere. There is nothing in the SWE practice standards that require you to have a social work role. I know people who have had their registration since gaining it after graduation, and have never had the job title of social worker.
Obviously if you wanted to go into practice you'd need to evidence at interview how you could meet the person spec to be competent at the job, but that's different from retaining professional registration.

You can’t keep your registration for long if you aren’t actually working as a Social Worker

Seems to be tolerated when its the other way around though. A male friends girlfriend is a carer for her elderly mum who is in her 70s Her mum does NOT like her having a boyfriend. Shes gone through her daughters entire bedroom. This was after finding a necklace my friend had given to her daughter and she also insists on going through her daughters bag every time shes been out with him. Its sick

The same principles (behaviour outside of work) do apply to social workers, and it's more common for social workers to retain their registration when out of work because the CPD required can be done through self study and reflection, compared to nursing where I believe you have to have more practical experience to keep your PIN (unless that's changed)

yup. There was an attempt by the RCN, many many years ago now, to require registered nurses to follow the same rules about CPR and other actions in their out of work time as when they were at work. This would mean that they would eg have no choice at accident sites. Clinicians who hold a professional registration are expected to generally behave in ways that will not bring the profession into disrepute and this can affect how they behave when not at work, so they aren't entirely free to behave as ordinary citizens (not sure if this applies to social workers) but once retired, their legal and professional duty ends unless they maintain their registration by paying the fee and continuing their CPD.

Well, I wouldn’t be talking to your so-called friend again. Jeez. Isn’t it time they went into a Home though? It sounds like a miserable existence for all of you, frankly.

I didn't say that and you know it. I find it quite chilling that you believe that you have totally inflexible morals.

Thank you. At least one person on here bothers to read a post and not imagine what is in it.

I don’t think that’s what was said, everyone has a moral responsibility to report abuse, although people may have different opinions as to where the line lies.
A retired social worker is no different from anyone else.

I think the fact that you would only report abuse if you were legally obligated is honestly quite chilling.

I do not consider my morals to be flexible in the way you describe.

I probably wrote that the wrong way around. Basically I was saying that if she had thrown something at her mother, hit her mother or was financially abusing her or repeatedly verbally abusing her the friend would not be unreasonable to make a safeguarding referral without discussing it with OP.
On the other hand,if she confided in a friend that she wasn’t coping and had lost her temper and thrown stuff around randomly on one occasion, it does seem heavy handed and he could have talked to her about looking after herself and getting some support.
My main point was that a retired social worker is just an ordinary citizen and doesn’t have a different level of responsibility from anyone else.
I had one experience when my daughter was at Primary school when another parent told her child not to play with my daughter because I was a social worker and would be checking on them and could take her into care. When not at work I was, of course. no different from any other parent. If I witnessed abuse I would have reported it but I wasn’t going out of my way to look for it or trying to conduct a covert assessment.

I’m sure there were ways to do that which didn’t involve putting in process sending the police around to interview the grieving wife and daughter of a terminally ill elderly man.

@RainbowPeppercorns
If you call that a "friend" who knows how it's been for you
Be hating to see your enemies
A Smug snitch
Comes to mind

It is incredibly difficult to be a carer of tge elderly

Unless you have done it yourself

Parent / child / relative role reversal

I sympathise

The whole thing depends on what your outburst looked like really, i wouldn't want to pass judgement without knowing the facts, all i will say is your friend may or may not have had reason to report you but that would depend on how much information you gave him, and how he perceived it, only you will know if he's still a good friend who just did what he thought was right or whether he's a friend that overstepped the mark and needs sidelining.

Yes but to report your 'friend' to SS when they confided in you rather than maybe trying to see if the elderly person is actually genuinely safe would be better. It's true she shouldn't have thrown so wrong but would it be normal for someone to call SS on your mate if they threw something in front of their teen? I'd try and speak to them first.

Just as SS don't have the capacity to visit every family where mums (or dads) shout loudly and throw things down when they are highly stressed or not coping, they don't have the capacity to deal with carer stress, MH issues, loneliness and suicidal thoughts that happen to many when caring for many for prolonged periods.

It's not just families that crack, my relative had two carers at different times that reached the end of their tether, one stormed out and one started crying after spending two hours clearing up bedsheets and the person covered in shit and they then had an accident immediately afterwards, and moved about covering everything all over again. Should they have cried? No, they were professional but in that moment, the demands of the job were overwhelming. My relative was very difficult and out of control a lot of the time, that's stressful. Doubly so when it's your relative that's dying.

How much harder to be the carer of your family who might be just as difficult as when you were younger, but now they are very old, can't hear what you say, may have cognitive decline/dementia, may ask the same thing 1000 times, may disagree with everything you do and so on.

No-one turns into a saint in these situations, not the carer and not the person being cared for (I've been both).

That's not to say genuinely concerning situations shouldn't be reported, but to me, raised voices, throwing down some things and storming out isn't that. I've done that with my teens for starters when their behaviour was unbearable.

Things I'd be concerned about would be cruelty, mishandling (like being too rough), over medication to get people to sleep/sedate them, ignoring basic needs, and any type of bullying (sounds like the OP's mum was shouting at her, this again is normal in older adults, indeed all adults, lots of people shout!) Beyond that, clearly physical harm, putting people at risk of falling.

SS are highly motivated to continue family care, it's much cheaper than going into a home for them, and some homes also suffer from the above problems, especially over-medication as it's very difficult to manage lots of very old people with few staff and that's one way to do it.

Even if the OP never comes back, it's interesting to think about this, and to decide what you would and wouldn't do (I'd be very concerned for my friend and try to get more support for them).

A few people have challenged me on here about my factual statement that a retired social worker usually will have no legal obligation to make safeguarding reports.
"Aha" they say "but what about a MORAL obligation"

Well I don't buy that as a broad argument to defend a choice of action.

People's morals and eithics are personal things....beliefs and opinions... and thus any obligation they feel to follow them are variable, both in type and degree. Sometimes their moral stance will result in actions which are practically positive, sometimes not. Sometimes actions resulting from a moral stance can be catastophic.