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

[JonasBogeys]

Maybe it would be a good time to look at the skill set needed for care work and PAY THEM MORE MONEY.
Most carers I meet through my job seem exhausted by working the amount of hours needed to get by.
They receive inadequate training at times.
They get punched and abused (a lot!)
Is it any wonder things go wrong?

I actually think it's more fundamental than that. Caring is repetitive and difficult work that women have historically been lumbered with as they have had very little alternative. Now society has shifted and more women feel they can opt out of caring but this doesn't solve the ultimate conundrum. We all need care at various points in our lives and if we can't rely on relatives that love us to provide it for free then how on earth can we persuade other people to provide it to us? Most people don't have enough money to be able to afford enormous care bills and the state can't afford the bill either. Factor in the vulnerable and disabled who can have extraordinary care needs and it's pretty obvious there isn't enough money, resource or dedicated carers to go around.

It's all very well suggesting we pay more to carers but would you really be happy to pay that personally either at the point of needing care or as some very high tax over your lifetime? This is what would be required and even then you would only attract people that were looking for financial gain and don't have a huge passion to care for people. Too many on this thread stating that they couldn't be carers etc, well that's how virtually everyone feels and yet demand for carers will only increase.

The only answer I believe is that we begin to accept that we all need to care for our own more. It's a bit like jury duty, nobody wants to do it but it's a duty we must all shoulder to some extent to keep society functioning. The idea that you can outsource care to the extent that we currently believe is completely fictitious and it is only not exposed because of the amount of informal care being carried out by relatives and friends. People then begin to think they are somehow doing the state a favour by caring for their loved ones, when in fact it's a necessity. We all can't walk away from our caring duties as the system would implode and our vulnerable would ultimately be severely harmed and die.

And I hadn’t read this either when I posted. Saying exactly the same thing as me.

I agree.

But it's not just a matter of training and more money - sometimes the carers need to be physically strong too.

I remember a discussion on here about problems in A & E where antisocial people cause problems. Health professionals shouldn't have to deal with nasty, violent people in A & E for all kinds of reasons. What they need in every A & E is a massive security person or bouncer to ensure horrible thugs don't threaten staff or other patients, and to get them and their families to leave when asked.

I'm not suggesting carers need to be thuggish themselves! Just strong enough and trained to deal with what might be a big, strong, wilful. patient.

Excellent post.

If you are a community carer, often using your own car and rarely getting paid the adequate expenses to cover that. You keep working while you are ill because theres neither the sick leave or the staff to cover. The first job of the day is someone who feels unsafe and who hit your colleague but there's not the funding to go in 2s. The second job you go in 2s but your colleague is half arsed. You have back to back visits that you are already late on because the commute time is factored in badly, some agencies dont pay you between jobs.

Youve visited the same person 3 times today for 15 min at a time. You get them up in the first, throw some clothes on them. Microwave a meal in the second, you are torn between actually speaking to them while it cooks or wiping round the bathroom. You have a tiny chat while writing your notes but it doesnt feel like enough. The family keep asking you to check the expirary dates in the fridge but there's no time and can you make sure she gets a wash

Your last visit is at 5.30 pm and you are having to putting to bed. You dont want to because it seems ludicrous that a grown adult gets no control over their bedtime but they are first on the bedtime round so you have to. They dont want to go to bed but there's no alternative. You are already running late.

You can see why people either leave or let it wash over them and become cold.

Same as an unpaid carer for family.

I'm apparently a skiver who takes people's benefits (a few pence over 86 a week and approx 55 in uc a week) and sits on my arse and do nothing according to my abusive next door neighbour who blasts music at all hours and bangs, hammers and shouts through the wall.

I am forever chasing my tail, never get a full night's sleep, never get a day off, I'm in a lot of pain my doctor won't medicate me for as they've removed two painkillers I was in for a long time to function as they're not covered by the NHS anymore and she won't replace them. just have to keep trucking and cover all eventualities whilst keeping two people out of care homes ans saving the government thousands a year.

It’s more expensive to have it in house though. The carers thst work directly for the council are the rehabilitation team where I am, they get £15 plus pool cars plus pension.

The idea is they get people back to independence after a hospital stay or as good as it’s going to get and hopefully the contract can be taken on by a care agency who are paid under £10 per 15 minute visit. No cars to maintain or future pension liability, no paying travel time, and you can blame someone else if it all goes wrong.

I did home care for a good few years due to the flexibility of the job around my kids. Pay wasnt brilliant, and a meagre fuel allowance but tax rebate could be claimed at year end.
We mainly dealt with the elderly and a few younger disabled people but very few incidents of violent clients.
One of the main things that stood out was that once the elderly/infirm person had been assigned a care package, many families were under the impression that it absolved them of any responsibility towards Grandma/Grandad/Auntie.
Very sad x

One of my many jobs was teaching 'Health and Social Care' in an international college.

There were some fantastic students who worked as carers whist studying to take their skills back to their home countries.

There were other, however, who could not understand the work, and I do not think should be carers. I know a lot of it was cultural.

I had one lesson talking about the different faiths patients / clients might have including those with no faith.

I set a piece of work for each to pick a faith / religion / culture to research and then feed back to the rest of the class. Things like if they want minister to visit, if the patient has a coloured thread around their wrist - don't cut it, it might look like someone is ignoring their new baby but this could be a cultural practice.

I had one student who was supposed to be researching Buddhism, her presentation was about how if she was caring for a Buddhist she would take her Bible in to tell the patient they were wrong, that they should not believe in anything other than what is in the Bible.

We had a rather one sided discussion where she could not understand why that would not be appropriate.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

@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

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).

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

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

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.

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