To think pay in care homes is scandalous

[Clappingforjoy]

I've worked in then and got out of it. Understaffed rushed off your feet. Rude management and simply unable to give the elderly the care they deserve.

@ishitglitter that definitely sounds like a great home which I’d hope to end my days in if needed, I just wish the hard workers like yourselves got a decent wage for your efforts. You might be able to teach the technical skills but the soft skills like care and empathy are inherent and difficult to measure on a pay scale. £8.15 just seems too low, like so many of the essential services.

I realise this is slightly off topic, but I think it's unfair that those who have saved all their life and worked hard to buy a home, etc, often in order to provide for those they love then have to spend that money on care in later life when people who have never saved get it paid for them.
Especially as those that pay are usually paying higher fees, which subsidise those that are council funded.

I do agree though that society doesn't value care work.

@Moveoverplease completely agree. Just put my nan into a care home and she'll be paying £800 a week until she is skint then get funding. It's shameful

I know this is about the third time I’ve said it but you can choose a care home that only takes self funders and then you won’t subsidise anyone.

And I’ve also pointed out more than once that some people work all their lives but are so poorly paid, they don’t have the chance to accumulate any assets. How fair is that?

Moveoverplease, Have you RTFT? Yes, it's technically off-topic, but we have also been discussing that point at length.

@alsohuman and I’ve also pointed out I’m happy to subsidise those and don’t have an issue being in a human with them. It’s the ones who haven’t earned anything as they’ve been collecting benefits while living in social housing all their lives. And again, I’m excluding those who have disabilities or who are caring for family who do.

@Fishbiscuits I was always told that carers cannot give medication. If they asked me ( if the medication was correctly measured out even) I would refuse. As I posted, if something went wrong it would be my fault and myself up in the docks. I don't need that stress ( not then and not now)

My post was in response to @Moveoverplease, who appears not to have read the thread. Unfortunately @QueenoftheNowhereverse, the state doesn’t make the same distinction as you so you wouldn’t be able to pick and choose.

CallmeAngelina Probably a bit outing but never mind. Athena Healthcare? our home alone is rated top 20 in the northwest very proud to be a part of that regardless of pay.

Ah right. Not the same then. We're in the 'sunny' south.

@Fishbiscuits I was always told that carers cannot give medication. If they asked me ( if the medication was correctly measured out even) I would refuse. As I posted, if something went wrong it would be my fault and myself up in the docks. I don't need that stress ( not then and not now)

You were given the wrong information then. Carers absolutely are allowed to administer medications, provided it has been prescribed for the person they are giving it to. Of course, different organisations have different policies, and may not allow carers to do so, and carers who administer medication should have training in doing so, but there is absolutely nothing illegal about it.
What carers cannot do, but nurses can, is dispense medication. This would be for instance giving a patient medication from a stock supply on a ward, which has not been dispensed by a pharmacy solely for that patients use.
There is an exception, in that carers can administer certain medications for use as a homely remedy, but this is a very small group of medications, such as paracetamol, which are generally available over the counter. These can be given without being prescribed for an individual, if local policy allows, but only for very short term use, i.e. paracetamol for a headache. If the individual requires more than a couple of doses then they need to be prescribed.

Actually, I’ve just thought, do you mean giving medication to a patient which a nurse or other individual has dispensed into a pot or similar, and which they and not you will be signing to say it has been administered? Because if so you are absolutely right, you should not be doing that. The individual signing the MAR is the individual who should give the patient/client the medication, and no-one else.
I totally agree with you about not wanting the stress though, I’ve known a fair few carers who have refused to give medication, because they weren’t receiving any more pay or recognition for doing so, and it was just another thing they would be getting in trouble for if anything went wrong.

ust put my nan into a care home and she'll be paying £800 a week until she is skint then get funding. It's shameful

There is nothing shameful about that. We earn money to pay for our housing, food, toiletries, etc. Why should that stop in old age and the money ringfenced for other adults who are able to make their own living?

CallmeAngelina Athena Healthcare is just the company name as such each home has its own name. They have homes all around the UK each one is ran very alike with a massive range of activities use the same systems ect. For anyone wanting a care home I couldnt recommend them enough I seen on Athena healthcares facebook page one of the residents in one of the other homes they run. He had a dream to go inside the cockpit of concord....so they arranged a day out for him and his pals from the home to go and he achived his dream it was fantastic to see and hear about!

Being allowed to keep £23.5k isn’t skint by most people’s standards.

Christ, I didn't know they were allowed to keep 23.5k. In what world is that nothing? It's 18 months wages to me. It would literally change my life. Sadly, as mentioned previously, my parents were abusive so even if they did have 23.5k stashed away for me to inherit, which they don't, it wouldn't go to me. They'd probably leave it to someone I hated to spite me.

Why does anyone need more than £23.5k inheritance? It's enough for a decent deposit on a house or a holiday of lifetime.

I know @Frequency. But apparently it’s skint ...

I have enormous respect for those who have a career in care - those who do it well and consistently at least. It becoming a stop gap job of last resort for those recently arrived in the UK without language skills or with no qualifications is frankly depressing.

I’ve had a lot of experience with the financing of care homes. Whilst I’m not blanket defending large groups, to badge any profit making operator a ‘fat cat’ is grossly inaccurate.

Staff costs are by FAR the biggest expense for a care home and usually make up between 50-65% of revenue (I have seen up to 80% of revenue), and that is before all the other overheads which have been listed by other posters on this thread.

Usually care home operators are carrying debt, as a feature of either the homes being acquired, built, or improved. A profit must be generated to service this debt, along with sensible levels of reserves to ensure the home can remain well invested in the future. It is also not unreasonable to deliver a sensible return to shareholders from any accumulated surplus, this is basic economics and shareholders are warranted a return on their capital whilst delivering a service to fulfil a clear demographic and societal need.

The structural problems in the care industry will not be solved without the Heath and Social care budgets / systems being pooled and NOT being split at central government level, as is the case currently. There is a huge lack of cooperation between these segments and this leads to huge financial inefficiency and worse still, failings in care. There are far too many elderly stuck in hospital, ‘bed blocking’ because they are unable to access the social care (often via a care home bed) that they need.

Fee rates paid by the local authorities must rise, so that staff can be paid fairly and trained so that they feel fulfilled in their roles. This has the knock on impact of better care delivered and less staff turnover. Agency staff are hugely prevalent in the sector and this comes at huge cost to the operator and also has an impact on the quality and continuity of care.

I'm an HCA in an NHS hospital and my pay is better than it would be in a care home, but not much better!
Yet the tasks we do in both hospitals & care homes help to get people better or to maintain the quality of their lives, sometimes even contribute to saving lives!

The Director of our hospital was recently given a £275000 pay off & the consultant anaesthetists are striking over paying extra tax on their million pound pensions.

And everyone says Staff Nurses should be paid more.
But no one cares about the care assistants who keep the wards running. Or the carers who work in the community.

Also one more thing many care assistants are Europeans- what will happen with Brexit huh??

Notwithstanding my first point in my last post, Brexit is an absolute disaster for the industry.

There will be genuine staff shortages and people will suffer. When operators go bust, no one wins.

@tierraJ I have always said that HCAs in hospital do an absolutely incredible job. It seems to me that many of the tasks you’d expect to be undertaken by nurses have moved to HCAs.

And everyone says Staff Nurses should be paid more.
But no one cares about the care assistants who keep the wards running. Or the carers who work in the community.

I think everyone should be paid more. However as a staff nurse it took me 2 years of NHS work before my take home pay was.more than my DP - a top of band 2 healthcare assistant, thanks to his higher enhancement rate and fewer deductions (higher pension, student loan that I pay). He made 21k last year without any overtime, significantly more than our friend who works in a care home. So yes I agree people need paying more, but I don't think comparing nhs pay to the private sector is necessarily fair (and we havent even started on the other benefits of working within the nhs, pension, maternity etc).

I think some of the issue is media representation. Newspapers are quick to run articles on substandard care homes or abusive carers but the homes that tick along nicely and the carers who run to the shop with their own money to buy Betty some milk because she's run out and has no money or who stay on an extra half an hour unpaid to make sure Bob gets to the social after he was late back from his Drs appointment don't get mentioned because it's not news. It happens every day. Ditto reviews and social media comments. People love to moan and complain. If a carer accidentally forgets to wash a pot or is tired and a bit short with a resident one day you can guarantee there would be people tripping over themselves to leave the care home a bad review and denigrate the carer on social media but compliments are harder to gain because it's normal for someone to sing to Norma when she she's upset, or for someone to hold Barry's hand when he's feeling lonely so it never gets mentioned. It passes people by and the care industry gets a bad rep.

I'm not saying all care homes are brilliant. I know some are awful but they're awful because of lack of funding not because of the carers working their arses off for NMW (or less since they often start early and finish late and work through their unpaid break).

My dad has loved all the European carers he's had helping him recently, and they love him back. Until he stopped being able to converse, he would always ask them where they were from, (invariably he'd travelled there at some point) and chat to them about their home countries. They liked to talk to him about it, too.
Saddens me (not to mention worries me too) that their jobs might be in jeopardy.

My mum died in the arms of a European carer she loved. He was amazing. Completely amazing.