Carers should be paid more money

[Vivana]

For what we do and what we have to deal with specially covid. Minimum wage is all I am on and have to run about for 12 hours with hardly no break.
I love the job and I'm lucky to have one but when dealing with residents who have covid it's so much more work and putting our health at risk. Wearing ppe all day is a nightmare including face visors. We also have to come on our days off for weekly covid testing as it's cumpolsary and now have to learn lateral Flow testing to residents can see there family's.
We should be paid much more than minimum wage. I probably am being unreasonable but I don't feel I am. The job is very rewarding but can be very sad and stressful to.

Absolutely but the downside is where an earth do you think this money will come from .

Yes carers are woefully underpaid. I looked into doing this briefly (in people's homes which pays a bit more) but found it was not for me. The responsibility you have is staggeringly and we were expected to get on with it after 3 days training and 2 days shadowing.

Private care makes big profits just not passed on to staff

Most jobs are paid according to supply and demand. There is huge pool of people who can work as carers, and as such the wages are very low.

What qualifications and skills do you have? Could you look to move into a better paid line of healthcare?

Paying carers is bloody expensive - it’s a shame that those doing the actual caring only get a fraction of the cost. Think FIL pays about £25-30 an hour, and the carer won’t get half that. It’s unfair.

YANBU OP

It's because carers are seen as unskilled/low-skilled workers and they're always bottom of the heap when it comes to pay.

I think people who work in any residential care setting or provide care at home for our elderly and disabled are the forgotten people of this country.
I agree, you should be paid more, after all it's a skilled job. Sadly the system is not set up for this... not sure how it can be changed.

YANBU. It's sad that the.people who are paid to look after our old people and young children are so poorly paid. In March we found out which jobs were important. And they're mostly still poorly paid.

It is about value - how do we value carers? Not as highly as I think they deserve I guess.

Totally agree with you op. Caring is far more complex than people recognise. The difficulty and knowledge required to be a good carer needs to be paid for properly.

@saveforthat
Private care makes big profits just not passed on to staff.

A lot of companies and homes are on the verge of going under It's quite difficult to make care pay even when they charge over £14 an hour and pay staff minimum wage.

100% underpaid- but I’ve seen both sides of it in emergency care.

We of course see the carers that do their job properly, know their patients and we can see that the people have been well cared for and the carers show genuine concern, which is quite obvious when we arrive.

Unfortunately it’s only about 50/50 and I’ve personally also seen/been called to a lot of people who ‘became ill 20 minutes ago’ who have clearly been unwell for days and not noticed, aren’t listened to, smelt awful, unbothered, left with dirty bedding/underwear.. basically no level of personal or domestic hygiene and in my opinion that’s down to caring being a minimum wage job which ‘anyone’ can quickly and easily get a job without actually caring. They tick the boxes as quickly as possible and leave without as much as even a smile sometimes. It’s not a job I could do and of course the carers who care and do their job properly should be paid a hell of a lot more.

Bring it up with your employers? It’s up to your employers to decide the salary and conditions of service. How much do you think you should be paid? I’m not being facetious, it’s not a job I would want to do- but if you want things to change then need to think about how much you want to be paid and how you justify it.

Many care homes are run by companies and not the state, often making a tidy profit (more so in the case of larger organisations). They could chose to pay more, but don’t. I suppose the reason for that is supply and demand- people will do the job for the currents rates of pay so they don’t want, or have, to pay more. I don’t believe the state should step in and lay down minimum wage for any individual job- they have set a minimum wage- so the only way is for carers to negotiate with their employers, possibly involving their union(s). If you want change, nobody will hand it to you on a plate OP. If you want it, you’ll probably have to do something about it. Not being unkind or patronising, but just typing “agree, carers are great and deserve a big pay rise!” doesn’t really help you practically.

Ultimately, if you aren’t happy with pay and conditions and your employers won’t agree to a pay-rise, then you may need to look for an alternative job with a higher wage.

I’m not saying you don’t deserve to be paid more but it’s all supply and demand. In an ideal situation I think everyone should be paid more.

If most of the population could do your job / have the skill set needed then it’s normally not highly paid. If hardly anyone can do your job then it’s paid more.

For example a doctors is highly skilled and so they get paid more, if only 1% of the population could get the qualifications and do the job. If 90% of the population can be a waitress / carer / retail assistant it’s is less well paid.

Unfortunately care is an expensive business. It is very highly regulated (rightly so) and for an employer there are so many additional costs to the hourly rate that there honestly isn’t much of a profit margin. Those complaining that the carer only receives half of what is paid by the customer often forget that in addition to the hourly rate, the employer will also be paying for training, mileage, travel time, employers NIC, holiday pay, sick pay, plus baring all the costs of running an office. This is why the UKHCA puts the minimum price for home care at £20.69 per hour (based on paying minimum wage). Only 60p of this is attributed to profit!
I totally agree that care is a hard and undervalued profession and good carers are worth their weight in gold, let alone minimum wage but the fact remains that it is woefully underfunded - many councils don’t pay anything like the ‘minimum’ price stated above and many private customers struggle to meet the cost as it is, without it increasing to allow higher wages for staff.

Most care homes are privately owned, therefore its down to the individual owners to pay more if needed. But if people are prepared to fill the vacancies for minimum wage, then that's what they'll pay.

@MaskingForIt

Most jobs are paid according to supply and demand. There is huge pool of people who can work as carers, and as such the wages are very low.

What qualifications and skills do you have? Could you look to move into a better paid line of healthcare?

After three years of seeing HCA and Carers look after my mum I can say you are wrong. Yes there’s a pool of people but not all can do the same role. Those in my mums who deal with head injuries - any HCA who is just used to washing or support feeding people wouldn’t cope with that. And bank staff don’t.

This obviously should be within N.H.S. As it is, people with private life savings (even with no pension and no house) must pay far more for the same service, just to subsidise councils who refuse to pay the economic price.
There aren't enough people with savings to do this peculiar form of taxation. Care homes and agencies are closing. Bear in mind the great majority of people needing care are in their own homes. People always automatically think of old people and of care homes. Disabled people come in all ages. And no, no no they do not all have a hot and cold running supply of free care from devoted family members who nurse them round the clock. Some do. Many don't.

No one can just become a carer you have got to be right for the job. It's a very hard demanding job and not everyone can do it. Specially nursing a end of life resident. Or someone with advanced dementia its not easy at all.
I have nvq level 3 in health and social care which is hard to get and various dementia courses. We are not low skilled by far. Not anyone can deal with eg a dementia resident or even the personal care side.

I forgot to add I'm also a qualified health care assistant where I can do bloods and give vaccinations and meds

Of course they should but someone has to pay it and care is already staggeringly expensive if you're at the end where you're paying for it, either as a taxpayer or privately.

I have a good friend who works in a care home, she loves her job and is exactly the person you'd want to care for you, I have tremendous respect for her and what she does, I often find myself saying "my friend who works is a care home..."

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for all her colleagues, but I'm not sure better pay would improve that.

I can't believe that one in 5 people here don't agree with you! Carers look after the most vulnerable people in society and are on minimum wage. I find that shocking. We pay people more to look after our pets, or to stack our shelves.

For those of you who voted YABU - how would you feel if it was your mum being looked after - or you when you are older. Wouldn't you want someone properly paid with good terms and conditions.

And good luck finding someone to offer care in many areas of the UK, such as rural Scotland. Even if you have the money to purchase private care or an agreed budget from the council, you often can't find someone to employ, because why would they take on work which is harder for less pay

It really points out how much some people value older and disabled people

The care home I work in charges between 800 to 1400 a week pending level of care needed. The company is private owned and has ateast 10 plus homes in my area and that's without community care. They are making a fortune. I have looked at other jobs and considering some but the grass is not always greener

The thing is caring is quite skilled but society pretends that it isn't in order to pay these guys less. Many many people could not change a catheter bag, use a hoist, be able to change a range of hearing aid batteries, communicate in Makaton, mix a thickened drink, puree food according to the stages, report safeguarding concerns or help someone into a standing frame. Plus a million other thing carers can be expected to do. There is no will to acnowledge the skill set and pay more. But yes of course you are underpaid.

And some of the justifications people are using are ridiculous

• Just find another job then (great so even fewer care workers when there is already a shortage)
• Negotiate a higher wage (Dream on, the care agency will be under contract to the council who are cutting costs to the bone)
• It's not a skilled job (As the OP has demonstrated, it is not only a skilled job, but a hard one that also requires great levels of empathy)
• It would cost too much (interesting nobody applies this same rationale when we talk about nurses or teachers pay)