Can't afford to do care work

[schratching]

I loved being home with my kids and I love caring for other people. Thing is, it doesn't pay. I'm in a male dominated field as the pay is much higher but I would love to be a care worker on a respectable wage. It's heartbreaking.

My childminder earns a good salary with her own business - would that be an option for you?

I am trying to employ a carer, can't find anyone as the council will only allow me to pay minimum wage and am trying to pay more but they won't let me.

Yes there’s a social care crisis- carers are leaving in droves not only because they can’t afford to live but due to the extreme work pressures caused in part by short staffing, under funding, lack of support and mismanagement.

The private care sector however will pay on average £18-20 per hour.

If you feel caring is your vocation then calculate whether you could afford to do it part time, or whether you could re visit your calling in the future, perhaps through a volunteering role.

”Caring” is a vast area of work; perhaps decide what your love of caring looks like and plan around that.
Caring for people can be as simple as helping an elderly neighbour by having a cup of tea once a week. It takes many forms.

It's the unseen work everywhere that's not being done.

You can pay as much as you want. Out of your own pocket. Taxpayer funded care policy is dictated by the formulas government use to calculate funding. There simply isn't enough money to pay everyone who needs care, never mind pay whatever they want to pay. They are acutely aware of the fact that carers are low paid. They do not have the money to pay them more. Social care budgets already account for a much as 2/3rds of total council expenditure, and are often massively overspent as well, impacting on all council services.

Much as I agree that care work is worth more, where do you think the council will get the money to pay for higher wages? They are limited on how much they can increase council tax by, the government won't give them more, and reserves are mostly gone now. There is nothing left in the pot.

@SmileyClare "The private care sector however will pay on average £18-20 per hour."

Where are these jobs? I've just done a search and the majority paying much over the minimum wage are £16ph contract work which means you are self-employed and will be employed under an umbrella scheme. So you'd pay your own employers contributions as well as tax and NI as an employee. By the time you've done that the wage will be back to minimum wage or below!

Do you think that a vulnerable teenager who is non verbal and is a flight risk and is incontinent should be cared for out of the house by a carer who has no qualification or experience because those are the only people who will do the job for minimum wages? Would you let you child be put in a dangerous situation like that? That is what we are being expected to accept. I am willing to believe that there are some brilliant people who would put up with such responsibility for such poor pay but unsurprisingly we have had a rolling job advert for 18 months at minimum wage and no applicants. If we don't get someone soon then I will no longer be able to look after myself and consequently my son will end up in care.

Did you misread everything I said? I am not saying that care workers workers shouldn't be paid more. I am not saying they aren't skilled or capable. I am saying that councils cannot afford to pay more. They don't have the money. I'm sure you have great grounds and reasons for needing to pay more to get a carer. So does everyone else. They cannot simply change the rules for you. And they cannot afford to change them for everyone. That is not their fault. They don't have the money. There is no magic money tree. Yes it's wrong. Yes it's horrible. But I have to ask again - what is your answer? They cannot give you what they don't have.

I understand that you have a bone to pick. But it's not with me, or the council. Blame the people who put personal gain and profit before everything and sit in government not having to care about such issues because they can afford whatever they need.

There needs to be a mass investigation into senior management positions and salaries. The profits running a care home for example are vast and simply not reinvested.

Ditto local councils. I live in a small rural town yet there are 4 managers at our local council earning over £150k a year.

*@Quveas I don’t know why you’re being so defensive of the council and dismissive of @Geneticsbunny she sounds at breaking point, just another victim of the current crisis in social care, some empathy and tact wouldn’t go amiss.

Councils could do more, the government could do more. Trotting out the line “there’s no magic money tree” is patronising in the extreme.

I wanted to “give back” to the community and do care work at our local home. I knew the wages would be shit - that’s a given - but the thing which actually prevented me was the rolling shifts. I’m a single mum with no family around - wtf am I supposed to do with my kids overnight when it’s not even the same night weekly?

Let’s not even go there when it comes to second-homers buying up all the cheap housing - that carers could previously afford - and then needing care themselves. 🙄

The issue of shift patterns is something that hadn't occurred to me until dd started looking for part time work. She is studying health and social care and has relevant experience. She was very keen to work in the field of residential care with young adults with learning disabilities. As she studies and has weekend work already she only had availability on certain dsys. She completely unable to get work. Everywhere insisted on rolling shift patterns which of course she couldn't do. It made no sense to me at all.

@SmileyClare
I am not being dismissive or defensive. There is no money. That is simply a fact. Social care budgets are massively overspent year on year. I very much doubt that the council only covers your small rural town; and picking a fight over 4 peoples pay won't solve the problems of underfunding. You say they can do more - well they aren't allowed to raise council tax, and they have no money. What exactly is the "more" they can do? Some realism wouldn't go amiss.

Childcare might be something to look into if you have young children. Our local day nursery offers half price places to children if the parents work there. There are funded hours too. Just a thought. They are crying out for staff atm.

Private sector pay worse then NHS for carers. Even agency is probably £15ph max for a care assistant. And that would be for a desperate care home with no other option.

£18-20 is for nurses in care homes which is more then the NHS because its so hard to have nurses in social care.

Yes admittedly that was a naive statement. I assumed that the private care sector would pay more, googled as such and got that average (£18-20ph)
I guess that covers a broad spectrum of care work in social care, health care, palliative, emergency, childcare at various levels.

Child care is something op could look into as suggested. It wasn’t clear what sort of care work op wanted to do.

Picking a fight over people’s (senior managements) pay won’t solve the problem of underfunding

Senior management command enormous salaries yet that has to be overlooked when they’re running an organisation that’s not fit for purpose?
The workers at the bottom are not even paid enough to house or feed themselves.

The profits from a residential care home for example are vast. That isn’t filtered down into training or paying staff. The distribution of money is far too top heavy.

I don’t think we should be accepting “budget says no, there’s no money” when senior management are capitalising and getting fat.

There needs to be a mass investigation into senior management positions and salaries. The profits running a care home for example are vast and simply not reinvested
I agree, these people are hoovering up all the money, it should be going to the people who are doing the real hard work i.e. the actual carers
The way things are going no one will want to do care work and these managers will have no one to manage..... I guess that'll put an end to their fat salaries 🤷

The profits from a residential care home for example are vast. That isn’t filtered down into training or paying staff. The distribution of money is far too top heavy
I agree profits always get siphoned upwards to the people at the top who hold the power, this is just what happens by default, we have to shine a light on it and put in measures to mitigate
Otherwise there won't be any carers apart from people who are desperate for money and have no other option for employment, are they people who should be caring for the sick and vulnerable?

You seem to be somewhat confused. The private sector salaries and profits are quite different from those in the public sector. Public sector managers are not capitalising or getting fat on anything. Senior public sector salaries are well below private sector equivalents, one of the reasons why it is getting increasingly difficult to recruit the calibre of manager willing to take on the complexities and responsibilities of managing inadequately funded public sector provision. There is not a single public sector (or third sector) residential home making significant profits - one of the reasons why so many have closed or are pulling out of the market. If you are dependant upon publically funded residential care then in most areas of the country your choices will be strictly limited - in some areas nigh on impossible to find - because councils are limited in what they are allowed to pay, so people have to top up with other income or assets. In exactly the same way as I described about home based care - you can pay as much as you want, but what the council pays towards that is a fixed amount.

BTW, at the bottom of the ladder, much public sector provision pays the Real Living Wage which is more than the statutory minimum. It still may not be as much as anyone would like, but it is an effort to recognise the needs of lower paid workers - something the private sector rarely if ever does.

You clearly have very little knowledge of the social care sector as evidenced by a number of claims you have made that are entirely incorrect, but are more than willing to slam those who are trying to make an impossible system work because they have no other alternative - other than to walk away and leave the most vulnerable with nothing at all. You don't want to accept that there is no money - something that is, frankly, one of the most well-documented facts that any of your google searches would turn up. You can't provide a single suggestion or solution, and you can't show any evidence that there is money to provide these services that you claim are being mismanaged. So I accept that I won't change your mind, and that you will continue to blame those who are working hard to try to make a difference when the change needs to come from the government. So I won't post further responses to you except to correct any factually incorrect statements.

Fair points. I understand your frustration if you work in that area. I’m certainly no expert.

However it’s not up for debate- over 80% of care home beds are owned by private corporations; that money is not filtered down to care workers. This is why publicly funded care home places are as you describe - severely limited.

It is getting increasingly difficult to recruit the calibre of managers (due to low wages)
This statement can be applied ten fold to recruiting care workers can’t it? as others have pointed out. There’s a catastrophic shortage.

I don’t have the answers but you have to agree the system is failing and the government appears to do very little to address it.

So, ignoring the debates about management wages (which in nursing homes are, in fact, roughly equivalent to the NHS equivalent ward managers/ matrons) and about how many of the “80% privately owned” homes make any profit at all…. Can I suggest that if you want care work you take on a part time contract at national living wage rather than minimum wage and top up wages with overtime (there’s plenty, at a couple of pounds an hour more). Once you’ve 6 months experience or so you can apply for a senior carer role, which is again a couple of pounds more. And at a lot of places if you work nights/ weekends you’ll get enhancements.

Come on, care homes are a lucrative business. I’m not talking about the wages of managers running the home on ground level, I’m talking about senior management.

Runwood Homes one of the biggest uk chains homes; reported a profit before tax of 25.4m in 2021. The owner received 2million in dividends in 2020 on top of a a 2.3m salary. He did really well out of the pandemic.
They cost cut, have continued low pay for staff, staff shortages. A quarter of its homes are rated requiring improvement by the CQC.

Avery health care run 56 homes in the uk, owned by the Reuben brothers (Britains second richest family) have an estimated fortune of £21.5bn.

There is obscene profiteering in social care.

Don't do it, It's very underpaid, undervalued and understaffed and very little room to move up, where I work senior care assistants get £1 above minimum wage and the next step up is nurse. if you want this type of work could you study nursing, social work, physio something along these lines? Also not amazing salaries but definitely better than care assistant. Agencies pay better, however I wouldn't recommend this either, the usual don't like agency staff (probably because they know your getting paid extra to do the same work), the treatment is awful and you usually don't know where your working from one day to the next, it's like starting a new job everyday, some do get block booked though.

Have you looked into home (domicillary) care? You have to do your research and find a company that pays travel time and mileage, but they are all out there. You dont say how much of a drop in wages you would have to take, so I dont know if its doable for you but it might be something you could look into.

@SmileyClare And our clearly inept and corrupt government just let it happen!

I foresee a hell of a lot of strike again going on in future! So many people are being abs screwed, whilst a few are raking it in!

These owners know full well they can still operate below sub standard levels, paying their staff pittance, turning up occasionally in their expensive cars, with the more desperate staff mostly the inept management you never see giving a helping hand on the floor cow towing to them like sad desperate sheep, telling the staff what to say and what not to say and that goes for the CQC visits too.

I worked in one and the level of care by the low paid and overworked staff was exceptional.

Starting at 7 and not getting a break most days until gone 3pm on a 12 hr shift, due to staff shortages! I worked on a nursing floor and pregnant to 20-25 residents with only 2 carers, it was totally unbelievable!!! Agency were brought in but it wasn't until later afternoon! The nurses helping out where they could. A complaint was made to CQC and what changed? Abs nothing.

And when CQC finally turned up as they'd expected, random unknown staff from their other local homes started to turned up in droves it was abs unbelievable! What was even worse was also then seeing a long standing hard working member of staff with limited English being grilled for almost an hour, it was uncomfortable to listen to. She knew full well her language was limited but continued to fire question after question at her.

It was like working in the 1800s, staff being sick in the morning due to stress and being run ragid all day.

This is the reality of a lot of care homes now and 'they' wonder why people are leaving in droves!

The government need to do the job they're employed to do and sort it out properly but they don't! A lot of homes were given to private owners and this is what happens.

It's a sorry state of affairs and I can't envisage any major changes coming anytime soon.

Carers are made of special stuff, they're the most hard working people and most do it because that's what they're relaly good at and it's all they know and can't afford to retrain they're trapped, they love caring for others, they can switch off their senses and help others calmly and with a smile.

They care for our sodding family members under such terrible working conditions with no hope of ever getting a decent pay rise. They care for the people we love so much! Our parents and grandparents, and they both receive such a raw deal! It's so very sad and we all have to recognise this and stand together to say No this is not bloody acceptable at all!!