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.

Because it’s a traditional female occupation. Always get lower paid. People will pay hundreds for someone to come and paint their hall but will balk at paying out for care.

For care home costs, you have to include the value of the property. That needs to be paid for and the main reason for regional cost differences.

@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.

Problem is theres lots of people who can do it and very little money to be made doing it.

So for any profit, or just for the service to exist low wages are the result.

Carers would be paid more if care recivers were richer, but if you're in need of care you probably don't have the opertunity to earn more.

Without the financial flow it doesn't develop like other industries.

Just raising the wages of carers wont change who's a carer and so won't change the service or the outcome so wheres the drive?

I have no idea how as a society you change the view to making caring a desirable and thus competitive market.

No one wants to think they'll ever need care

I agree with you op. I was a nursery nurse for many years. A job that many have degrees/higher level qualifications for on minimum wage. Because it’s often seen as babysitting despite the high standards set by ofsted.

Carers have a really tough job. People are more skilled ( often learned in the job) than others give them credit for. I couldn’t do it and I work in a busy NHS job. Care is so underrated and underpaid. It all needs an overhaul.

I think the general public have little idea just how much Carers are doing in their community. it is a definitely not a job that anyone can do , it requires skill, knowledge and aptitude . When a care agency would send a new supposedly trained recruit to my home it would become quite obvious that they would never be up to the job and should be looking elesewhere for employment.
In the community there are Carers with the responsibility for Caring for children and adults with complex unstable medical conditions, doing their medication, tube feeding, dealing with epileptic fits, unstable asthma, mental health issues, tracheostomies, physiotherapy etc etc all the while trying to give someone a more normal happy life and deal also with the emotional,impact on other family members
Yes they definitely should be paid more, formal qualifications should be put in place, there should be a career structure so that the more experienced Care workers get paid more. THe hours that they work should be regulated more, too many agencies only offer each worker a low set number of hours in their contract which means they can be exploited more and often have to work a number of jobs with different agencies to make ends meet. Covid has shone a light on some of these practices..

ANy enquiry into how the pandemic was handled should explore how important decisions were made especially at the beginning mainly by men favouring a gung ho battle fight against the virus . They appeared to know little of the vulnerability of some of the population hidden away in care homes. Why would they? These were successful career driven men at the top of the tree, care homes were places they would rather not visit and knew little about.

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.

That £25-30 also has to pay CQC & other regulatory fees, insurance, rent for the offices, salaries for the non-care staff (visit co-ordinators, finance, marketing, IT etc), employers NI & pension costs, advertising, staff training etc etc.

I work for a private care company and believe me we’re struggling to stay afloat, let alone making massive profits.

I am extremely lucky that I work for the city Council where I live, so my pay and conditions are much better, and we have been supported much better this past year.

It annoys me when people say its a job that 'anyone can do.' So many people could not do care work. They might think they can, but they can't. I have worked in places before where they would take anyone on. Once the reality of personal care, assisted feeding, catheter care, challenging behaviour etc kick in it really sorts those who can from those who can't.

Its a great job and I love it, but I think having a good employer helps a lot.

YANBU OP, I couldn’t do the job you do. Thanks for all you do for the people you care for.

It’s not well paid because the government don’t value it, because caring is “easy women’s work”. Of course the men in government wouldn’t know it’s not easy as they’ve never done any caring for anyone in their life.

If the covid test is mandatory I am not sure you can refuse to have it done.

www.unison.org.uk/care-workers-your-rights/

The thing is, if the wages go up many carers will be priced out of their own jobs. The bar will be higher and it will be harder to get these jobs.

This doesnt mean I agree with it, just that it is a possibility.

Just raising the wages of carers wont change who's a carer and so won't change the service or the outcome so wheres the drive?
I have no idea how as a society you change the view to making caring a desirable and thus competitive market.

It is a skilled job, I'd like carers (informal and formal) to have access to training and qualifications to reflect this. At one point in April, health bodies were seriously considering that there would be no home care for people. The plan was to send along the paraphenalia (injectors etc.) and a pdf advising people how to administer medications. I remembered this and was pleased to see it mentioned here:

Dad is determined to die at home. When, or what of, remains to be seen but he has had enough of hospitals, so that is his decision. Doctors, district nurses and palliative care teams had assured us they will facilitate this, but in April I read that, should he shuffle off now, they will not come. Instead, we will be obliged to download a pdf of instructions, and await delivery of the necessary drugs and gadgets to ease him into the next world ourselves. No one tells us this: I find out from the newspaper. I don’t share my discovery.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/dec/26/i-expect-my-elderly-parents-to-die-but-to-suffer-alone-the-truth-about-caring-through-covid

There is a vast unmet need for training of many sorts of carers and this should be recognised with appropriate financial and other support.

@ChasingRainbows19

I agree with you op. I was a nursery nurse for many years. A job that many have degrees/higher level qualifications for on minimum wage. Because it’s often seen as babysitting despite the high standards set by ofsted.

Carers have a really tough job. People are more skilled ( often learned in the job) than others give them credit for. I couldn’t do it and I work in a busy NHS job. Care is so underrated and underpaid. It all needs an overhaul.

Why would you get a degree to work minimum wage?

*Mischance

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

Definitely this! I would say it is a highly skilled job, but the skills and the qualities needed to make a good carer are not those we value in our society. It’s a sad fact that most of us don’t think about care / carers until we or our loved ones need help. At that point the cost, limited provision working conditions are a shock to many people.

Carers should be valued more highly and paid much better. I think it’s one of the most important jobs going. Who would you like to care for you or your loved one if needed - a skilled, compassionate person with enough time and resources to do their job properly, or an overworked, poorly trained, unappreciated person under pressure to complete an unrealistic number of visits every shift?

It's not as simple as supply and demand, and neither is it as simple as an unmet need for training. Care agencies get a subsidy for every carer they give basic training to, and many of them run training sessions all year round. It's an income earner in itself, and another reason to continually recruit from all over the world rather than pay local people a living wage to keep turnover low. (I say living wage, but with all the sly forms of wage theft going on, carers aren't even paid minimum wage for the hours they work.)
Other advantages of recruting from all over the world is that carers are basically disposable, and while some clients would prefer the same carers to keep working with them, others delight in abusing the carers, verbally (plenty of racial abuse) and physically, aware that care agencies are fighting over a dwindling pool of clients with funds to pay them and will keep sending in fresh meat in the form of carer after carer for as long they can.

I disagree that caring is skilled work. I did it immediately after leaving college with no skills or experience. I only did it for a few months before going off to uni. I had one, possibly two, supernumary shifts as my training.

I've known lots of people do this. My sister did the same and is still there 15 years later. She loves her job. She has done her NVQ 2 & 3 but she lacks the knowledge of why she does things, the theory behind the care she provides, which is what I think is the difference between skilled and unskilled work.

Carers need to be registered, perhaps directly with the CQC, to stop bad carers moving from one provider to another. Overhauling the NVQ system and ensuring carers complete this within two years (or another set time period) would perhaps go some way to seeing care work as skilled.

@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?

This is really rude and you better hope you receive a “good” carer in your old age.

YANBU at all. I bet a lot of people simply couldn't cope with the things you have to deal with your job - I think you have to be a strong and resilient person to do it.

I’ve got first hand experience of working in a nursing home. I loved it and it improved my work ethic.

I’m forever grateful to my residents... I worked in a wealthy nursing home and the conditions were excellent. We had housekeepers and professional chefs also a laundry team too.

The carers were not expected to do these tasks.

The problem in nursing homes your overworked I used to have 8 residents to look after it’s impossible to meet everyone needs when some people on my list were a double (needed 2 carers).

It also has a high Turner people often leave because they are over worked and they are long hours.

I did it for 3 years I’m glad I did it however I’m even more glad that’s not where I work now.

@OrchardBlossom don’t be too caught up in a piece of paper. There’s plenty of people who are at the top.... it’s not because of intelligence nor skill.

Sometimes it’s luck, who you know or having the gift of the gab.

Problem is society views caring/ nursing care as a vocation and not a safety critical job. If this is a negotiating position they one can't expect much. Why would any company pay someone something they would do for free because it's a vocation 'a calling' or whatever

Care agencies get a subsidy for every carer they give basic training to, and many of them run training sessions all year round. It's an income earner in itself, and another reason to continually recruit from all over the world rather than pay local people a living wage to keep turnover low

This is not true. The cost of recruitment at our care agency is higher than the subsidy we receive when a carer becomes fully trained.

Very good piece about care and the need for a National Care Service with the inevitable issue of who should fund it:

www.heraldscotland.com/news/18970705.care-crisis-need-reform-care-sector-scotland--/