We have all witnessed or better still participated in the clap for carers initiative which has grown out of the current crisis. I am sure that the carers themselves are lifted by our support. However what they really need is practical help, something that the government has been slow in coming up with.
Britain’s carers have been getting a raw deal for decades, they have very poor working conditions and the system they work in is broken. When I was a regular visitor to a care home five years ago staff shortages were a daily feature and shortages of basic equipment a fact of life. Despite that the workers did their best with a smile on their faces treating the residents with kindness. When someone passed away they were visibly upset. These ladies were simply amazing and I regularly told them so.
Now Coronavirus has struck the acute inadequacies of the care system have been cruelly exposed. In this situation residents will be needing more attention from an already overstretched workforce, shortages of equipment will be putting lives at risk and the sheer scale of deaths must have an impact on the mental wellbeing of staff.
This Conservative government appears to have no answer to this situation and should be slammed for its failure to address the issues that have been raised in public debate throughout their time in office. All carers whether they be family, home or residential have been getting a raw deal for years.
The same also goes for the elderly and vulnerable people they look after. So when this is all over we need a national campaign to address this. That means a living wage for all of those employed in care, a decent level of carers allowance for family carers, national standards established for training, breaks, time off, staffing levels and a charter of rights. Personally I believe that these reforms can only come by bringing social care under the NHS as a public service.
Most important of all I don’t want to see our carers forgotten once the current crisis is over. So by all means clap for carers but in the future join me in a campaign to improve things on a permanent basis.
* David is a member of Horsham and Crawley Liberal Democrats
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Give us the money
Fraser's weekly ward surgeries tonight! #dundeewestend
Conference Video Diary day 2
15 minute cities: what is it with the Tories and stupid?
Cycle speedway: the sport that flourished on bombsites
Has Britain lost its mind?
Christopher Haigh
M E LARKIN
Katharine Pindar
Peter Martin
12 Comments
David, I agree that we need action to back up the clapping. In terms of the specific actions you have proposed:
Living wage – what would this look like? Could raising the minimum wage to this living wage be the solution, without having to create a separate national minimum carers wage?
Training – how is this a problem at the moment? I’ve not heard of this as an issue – I’m not saying it isn’t.
Breaks & time off &charter of rights- we already have legislation for all jobs for this, what is needed that is different for carers?
Staffing levels – need to be careful here, who/how do you define the right level and account for productivity changes over time? See equivalent situation in childcare which has increased costs without meaningful improvement in quality vs lower staffing ratios in Europe.
Carers allowance – is this financial? How are family carers currently supported?
I agree we need something along the lines of a National Care Service for better integration with health and local authorities plus economies of scale but just by having something public doesn’t guarantee success – we already have care companies that are social enterprises or publicly run. The majority of care services in the UK are purchased by councils – which could require these things as part of the contract. Thoughts?
I’ve thrown a lot at you! But believe me when I say I’m interested in your response.
@ Freddie “The majority of care services in the UK are purchased by councils – which could require these things as part of the contract. Thoughts?”
Yes, Freddie, and uncomfortable ones. As a Lib Dem Convenor of Social Care I was involved in such contracts. Central government (of which this party was part) funding to councils was cut to the bone between 2010-15. It led to a race to the bottom in contract competition and downward pressure on wages and staffing levels.
The Independent reported, “Local councils have seen their central government funding halved in the era of austerity and are now on the verge of financial breaking point, according to a new report by the National Audit Office (NAO).
Parliament’s official spending watchdog said that, even as grants have been slashed as part of the Government’s drive to eradicate the deficit since 2010, demand for councils’ services, particularly adult social care, has continued to rise, putting them under extreme pressure. Councils have been forced to dip into their financial reserves to fund their care commitments and the NAO estimates that if local authorities keep draining their savings at the current rate one in 10 will have exhausted them in just three years’ time.”
The answer to your question, Freddie, comes far too close to home for comfort. I now judge political parties by what they do, not what they say.. On a different level, local government employees used to form a major part of Lib Dem support. Not anymore … the party’s present dire situation is the result.
@David. Thanks for your response – it seems like funding is the underlying issue then? Increasing costs (which is reasonable and expected with the improvements you propose) without increasing funding is going to hit a brick wall.
Could/should we publish our own version of the Social Care green paper, which sets out the key problems as we see them (including funding) and our proposed policy solutions? Who is our spokesperson or policy lead in this area?
P.S I’ve answered my own question re: ownership and dropped Munira Wilson an email asking for her comment.
@Freddie Thanks for the questions my answers are as follows;
Living Wage – Yes this could be covered by an increase in the minimum wage. However long term there is no reason why in the longer term care workers shouldn’t have national pay scales in a similar way to other health care workers.
Training – This is a problem particularly in home care because the private companies who councils give the work to are simply not ‘policed’ I lost count of the number of times when we were sent ladies who simply didn’t know what they were doing. When I raised this with my local authority they weren’t interested.
Breaks & Time Off – Any regulations are simply ignored by the same private companies and in my experience the local councils that give them the work. Staff are regularly given unmanageable workloads which means they have to work through any breaks they are due to have. Shifts are scheduled that have people working from 7am until 11pm totally ignoring things like the European Working Time Directive.
Staffing levels – Similar to the above. In residential care they simply not enough staff on duty to look after the residents. This leads to residents waiting inordinate amounts of time to get help. Call bells ringing for over one hour are not uncommon. Again I raised this with both the local council and the regulator the CQC. Neither were interested.
Carers Allowance – Finances are an issue, the current level of carers allowance is even lower than other benefits currently £67.25 per week. There also needs to be an overall package of support for family carers including respite breaks which many find difficult to access.
Hope that helps, I could say a lot more!
Let’s hope the discussion in the future will be constructive in the way the author suggests rather than the party’s traditional method of reaching for cheap “dementia tax” style campaigning points.
The issue of training is a good one. My experience working in the community with people with dementia and as an activity co-ordinator with people with dementia is that some cliches and misunderstandings and bad practice persist because of limited training of staff.
@ David – thank you for taking the time to reply.
Can you sense check my attempt to parse what I think is the root cause problems you are putting across:
1.
1.
1. Private providers are ignoring/fail to meet the regulations we have.
2. The authorities (CQC and Councils) are failing to investigate or punish this, with the powers they have.
3. Lack of funding (potentially a driver of 1&2)
Introducing more regulation when regulation is already being ignored feels like a non-starter?
What can we do to get the authorities to act with the powers that they already have, on the regulation that’s already in place – that feels like it should be the first step? Who watches the watchmen?
You propose Public provision as a solution, could you go into a little more detail on why you think public care body would be better at heeding/meeting regulatory standards? Not saying I disagree, I just think you’ve communicated this as an implication at the moment rather than setting it out.
@Freddie thanks.
We used to have a publicly provided adult social service prior to 1989 when it was privatised by the Thatcher government. Both my mother and my late partner worked in that sector and it was gold plated compared with what we have now. Not least because the supplier i.e. the state wasn’t looking to squeeze a profit out of the service.
The only way to give social care parity with general health is to bring it under the umbrella of the NHS. A private system overseen by a toothless regulator has completely failed.
I can assure you have given this a lot of thought and this is not a proposal driven by ideology. Health and Social Care should be combined with the state as provider because it is the only solution that can work.
The weekly reports about how celebs, MPs and ministers (including Johnson), most of whom view the NHS as for ‘ordinary’ people, clap annoys me..These same MPs applauded the refusal to allow the same NHS workers a small pay increase; that is the test of their ‘appreciation’!
You talk o’ PPE for us, an’ bonuses and pay:
We’ll wait for extry money if you treat us right todayl.
Don’t mess about with pointless claps, but prove it to our face
The Nurse’s Uniform is not an orphan child’s disgrace.
Apologies to Kipling..
expats – exactly right
It is not just that workers in this sector have not been valued. There has been a stigma to working in this sector. I consider my degree to have been well used working with people with dementia but an activity therapist with people with dementia (at 8.21 an hour) is not considered a graduate profession.
@Ðavid.
‘Health and Social Care should be combined with the state as provider because it is the only solution that can work.’ This should be the headline to your next article – it’s the heart of what you are arguing for and you should meet it head on by unpacking the detail. In the current article it only get’s the ante-penultimate sentence. I’m not sure I fully agree with you as it stands, but would be keen to read the well thought out case for it.
The country must not be allowed to forget where the blame should lie after many years of terrible neglect of the NHS and social care services and most importantly the people who work in these much undermined and underpaid professions. Thank goodness for people like you Ruth!