Diary of a home care worker: Overworked, underpaid – and looking after your loved ones – Home News – UK – The Independent

Last Updated: May 20, 2014By

We were discussing the plight of carers on Vox Political yesterday and I would have liked to have reblogged this then, but problems being suffered by many WordPress sites (including this one) made that impossible. Here it is.

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9 Comments

  1. Bryn miller May 20, 2014 at 10:15 am - Reply

    As I said before,who would do this for the minimum wage its disgraceful? Obviously some folk do.They are the stalwarts of our society and I take my hat off to them.

    • Mike Sivier May 20, 2014 at 10:32 am - Reply

      I’m a carer, although Mrs Mike is nowhere near the poor health of many. It’s not the same as the professional carers under discussion, but when you consider that I am ‘on call’ at all times, my Carers’ Allowance comes out at just less than 36p per hour.

      • amnesiaclinic May 20, 2014 at 11:14 am - Reply

        The irony is that if you are retired as I am and have a pension you receive nothing as a pension is now classed as a ‘benefit’. So there are thousands of us doing this for love for our relatives.

  2. Methusalada May 20, 2014 at 10:17 am - Reply

    Yes I understand this to be true. Fortunately I have my wife but she is not a happy bunny about the hours & pay. However I have noticed that in 1% of households they don’t have such problems and have to rely on the 99%. Some people really know how to suffer.

  3. prayerwarriorpsychicnot May 20, 2014 at 10:51 am - Reply

    Scandalous. Very good report. How do they get away with it? Is it because those responsible for these decisions are always concealed from public view? These elderly paid taxes all their lives. Why is it too much to ask that they get decent care when they need it. There was also the case recently where Social Workers blocked an elderly lady paying privately for her own care. She pointed out her privately employed carers were there when she needed them, they got paid more and it cost her less. She was in her nineties and they tried to argue she wasn’t mentally capable of managing her own affairs. So the govt wants competition except when it is better than an inadequate, over-priced state monopoly service which exploits its employees. Everybody loses but who is gaining?

  4. Joanna May 20, 2014 at 11:13 am - Reply

    Bloody Hell!!! How can this possibly be legal! Yet again another demonstration that this crappy coalition doesn’t give a damn!!!

  5. Mark Angliss May 20, 2014 at 11:30 am - Reply

    Don’t worry, folks. The Government are aware of this problem and are on top of it. From this month, overworked and underpaid care workers will be supplemented, possibly even replaced, by unpaid conscripts press-ganged off the dole queues under the “Community Work Placement” scheme. Problem solved.

  6. jaypot2012 May 20, 2014 at 5:54 pm - Reply

    These “service users” are not getting what they need and the assistants are also not getting what they need. Each person who works looking after the elderly and sick at home deserves proper pay so that all the clients get the same amount of time needed and more workers should be employed, as they are desperately needed.
    We have more and more elderly living longer and it’s set to get an even larger amount of elderly people in the next decade or so – are they to be treated like some form of stock that gets 10mins for help?
    There is money there to pay the councils much more than they get now, there is money there to supply nurses and carers, as well as cleaners and assistants and there is money there to give all the elderly and unwell people the help and assistance that they need, except the government won’t give it out to the councils and keep cutting their budgets when the money is there to raise the amounts given a lot – the government won’t admit it has the money to do this, and we go along and accept that.
    We are the ones to blame for this carer not being able to help and stay and chat with her patients and others, we are to blame for the elderly who are suffering and are unable to get the help they need as we have stood by and let this government take, take and take some more.
    We should have, and we still can, do something about it all – its in our power to help the older generation because we’ll be that generation soon enough and will need that help…

    • amnesiaclinic May 21, 2014 at 11:25 am - Reply

      Very well said! And I agree with you that we have the power to change it. We need to get to the local meetings and challenge this nonsense that there is no money – the mantra that everyone has so easily swallowed.
      Yes, it is up to us so armed with the knowledge we have from this excellent blog and others like it, from David Icke’s Headlines and change the world!
      Bring it on!!
      Love
      x

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