Wages in the care sector are piss poor, government refuses to invest, and makes it harder for overseas labour to come here and work. Meanwhile Tory donors trouser billions in windfall profits.
Life in Conservative Britain. And still 25% of the electorate will vote for this kleptocracy.
It’s like a whole generation of people never thought they’d get old. A whole generation of people thought ‘it won’t happen to me.’
I don’t know what this country wants from us youngsters. You old folk have all the money?
What are we supposed to do? It’s depressing that pieces like this make us all feel bad but also you’re the ones with the money?
It’s like a sympathy piece about Mr Bumble getting depression after selling Oliver.
This country needs to change, but we’re too far gone for now. Generations of Brits made decisions that got us into this mess, and it’ll take a generation or two to get out.
Before anybody comments saying ‘what would you do’, well you’ve got to encourage the elderly to sell their homes for care because in this country, that’s where all the money went – the housing market.
We gave up on our own economy in the nineties for cheap toys from China and all that’s left of our rotting corpse of an ‘economy’ is the housing market.
The same generation that pulled the ladder up behind them because “fuck you have mine now!”
Your grandparents built the NHS, went through 2 world wars and a pandemic. Boomers can go fuck themselves!
Rahhhh. Did you hear that? Sounded a bit like leopard didn’t it?
“But I worked hard all my life”. Karen you’ve worked part time in a supermarket for the last 20 years. Before that a house wife.
Not saying supermarket work isn’t hard work, I know first hand it is, but it is easy for the old coasters, who are so unproductive, it actually creates more work, giving them work.
The generation who threw young generations under the bus to protect their own wealth have no one to look after them because people can’t afford to be carers? Ironic innit
Older people are now selling their homes to fund their care needs now, meaning the inheritance they hoped to pass on is now being spent keeping them alive. Those who cannot do that are struggling. If the current elderly population want this reversed then they need to demand it now, simply because it will take years of reforms, training and recruitment to fix this. It won’t be resolved over night, so there are plenty of older people who are going to find themselves in this situation shortly.
I’ve gone past caring what they elderly think. That generation clearly don’t care the state they leave the UK behind for their children and grandchildren… From economy, living conditions, rent, environment. They buggered everything up.
Government needs to do a crack down on corporations providing care. They have a scammy business model, milking both the customers and workers. For instance, company gets paid £100 per hour per customer, they pay the worker minimum wage (often less than that if you count overtime) – worker is also hired through an agency and they don’t have any rights, they spend some money on admin etc and likely half of it goes to shareholders and is siphoned out of the country to avoid paying taxes.
Care does not need to be as expensive as it is. Theyre gouging old people, the amount you are forced to spend and ultimately you’ll get someone doing it for minimum wage that has too many people to see.
Meanwhile every manager or owner of a care agency I know drive an audi or bmw.
We need rules and limits, and to integrate social care into the NHS or link them somehow because its ridiculous.
[deleted]
Six fucking days a week I worked doing healthcare, looking after elderly and people with disability. Six days a week and I only cleared £45 a day because care work only covers the time you’re with clients and none of the travel between.
I was working eight hours a day and only getting paid for five hours at MINIMUM FUCKING WAGE. I literally saved people’s lives. Gave people life saving treatments, called ambulances. Four of my clients died in a year. This a not a fucking minimum wage job. It’s not easy. It’s not relaxing, it’s fucking depressing.
I can’t stress enough how healthcare is a dead career option. I live in a very cheap accomodation and I still couldn’t save any money for anything. I only quit a few months ago and I’m still in debt from that time.
I would have made more money working four days a week working in Tesco than I did working six days in healthcare.
No sympathy at all. Collectively, the boomers as a generation have well and truly fucked this country. No they’re reaping the consequences of their actions.
If only there was some sort of democratic system by which you could, over your life, vote for policies that would make preparations for your old age long in advance
How about they start making assisted suicide a thing once you’re old and struggling. This is the option I would choose if I couldn’t look after myself anymore, and couldn’t live the life I wanted.
What the fuck do they expect from us? Care work is shit pay for the amount of work you have to do.
Once again another problem that would that wouldn’t be a problem if they paid the workers a proper wage, but nope, yet again it comes down to young people apparently being lazy and not willing to do the job. It couldn’t POSSIBLY have anything to do with the care sector being an utter shambles and massively underfunded.
Nope, young people are the problem right?
The problem is starting pay for a carer is just a little above minimum wage at around £11, while Aldi pay £13 an hour for warehouse staff.
Then there’s sickness – you daren’t turn up for work with anything that might bump off the residents so any D&V, virus stuff and we want you to stay home. We’ve had homes where 25% of staff hours in the week were called in sick. And they have to be covered, so then you’re getting agency at exhorbitant rates (not paid to the actual staff working of course, but trousered by the agency)
And one little mentioned delight – obesity. Residents aren’t little old ladies the size of a sparrow anymore, they’re increasingly great hulks who have to be winched in and out of bed, require multiple staff to handle them and frequently result in staff injuries like pulled muscles and bad backs. That isn’t going to get better.
And that’s in care homes – care in the home is in an even worse state. Because staff have to drive to clients houses they’re often working for less than minimum wage.
But 70% of residents of care homes have dementia – and only 1 in 3 people end up in care. It’s not a forgone conclusion.
Isnt the uk population growth slowing down, and set to DECLINE in coming couple of decades? if there lower birth rates, and tighter immigration, they’ll be more of a massive concern then there is now.
It’s not just older people it’s working age adults with disabilities and children who are experiencing these staff shortages. People are being left without access to food or water laying in their own mess because there’s no one to cover. It’s disgusting. We need to value people performing caring roles (paid or unpaid) and support them not force them out of the role because it’s not financially viable for them.
It’s almost as if people don’t want to work their bollocks off in a stressful environment for minimum wage.
If you improve pay and conditions the care industry staff shortages will improve.
Probably best we just ignore it for another thirty years
Social conservatism is the religion of the elderly.
Opposing change is the first commandment.
Well well well, if it ain’t the consequences of old crusty numbskulls voting for brexit.
I’m a domiciliary carer, so i support people to live in their own homes instead of going into a care/nursing home.
We are so woefully short staffed that my few recent weekends I’ve worked I’ve done a 15 hour shift with no breaks.
Its pitiful the state our elderly are in. I’ve never feared aging but I certainly do now.
It’s a dead end job that pays minimum wage.
What do they expect?
That’ll teach em for keeping on voting for the traitory party.
Wait.
Your telling me people don’t want to work for below minimum wage because they’re only paid for the time in the client’s home…. where they’re expected to give medication and clean stomas with 2 weeks training…. to be spat on and disrespected by the people they’re caring for?
I can’t imagine why.
Triple lock pensions, previously final salary
Endless spending on the NHS, 90% of which goes on the over 70s
Is anything ever enough for this fucking generation?
£1500 per week for care in a home. The actual carer who does the work gets minimum wage. Another example of syphoning all the money into the pockets of the super rich.
It’s a shame we can’t include carers in the nurse strikes
They voted leave and many European care workers left.
They thought they could get rid of foreigners and things would be fine.
Fml
I left after working 15 years in adult social care: I was emotionally and physically exhausted and burnt out. Years of being unsupported, screamed at, gaslighted, run around 3 counties as headless chicken and worst is so underpaid that I was constantly worried about getting in debt and ending up homeless. Yeah carers picking up extra shifts at thee companies and still having possibility of homelessness hanging about their heads, will change their mind about caring. Carers are expected to care but no one cares about them. Oh and don’t have me started on working every single day of week, Christmases, Easters, bank holidays because of course single people are not as important as married ones with kids so they have nothing better to do and don’t deserve same time off or decent shift patterns. Nicer and more caring you are, worst you’ll get treated.
Trouble is society does and never will value care workers.
The only time a carer becomes valued is when they are needed.
But only by the person requiring Care
‘Greed is good’, ‘no such thing as society’ really fucked up the incentives in this country. That appears to be the problem here. Everybody feels personally responsible for their success/failure and the shift to people organising their own benefits and care incentivises not “wasting money” because that invokes feelings of failure in a society where you are judged on your ability to accumulate wealth. It’s greed all the way down, but not as an individual vice, but a structural problem, a societal value.
But also, women have options now outside of being everybody else’s unpaid carer. But what was put in its place? How did we compensate societally? We didn’t, we just employed poorer people to do those roles. It was never sustainable. A society where everybody is incentivised to be selfish cannot effectively care for people who cannot participate in that for whatever reason.
33 comments
Wages in the care sector are piss poor, government refuses to invest, and makes it harder for overseas labour to come here and work. Meanwhile Tory donors trouser billions in windfall profits.
Life in Conservative Britain. And still 25% of the electorate will vote for this kleptocracy.
It’s like a whole generation of people never thought they’d get old. A whole generation of people thought ‘it won’t happen to me.’
I don’t know what this country wants from us youngsters. You old folk have all the money?
What are we supposed to do? It’s depressing that pieces like this make us all feel bad but also you’re the ones with the money?
It’s like a sympathy piece about Mr Bumble getting depression after selling Oliver.
This country needs to change, but we’re too far gone for now. Generations of Brits made decisions that got us into this mess, and it’ll take a generation or two to get out.
Before anybody comments saying ‘what would you do’, well you’ve got to encourage the elderly to sell their homes for care because in this country, that’s where all the money went – the housing market.
We gave up on our own economy in the nineties for cheap toys from China and all that’s left of our rotting corpse of an ‘economy’ is the housing market.
The same generation that pulled the ladder up behind them because “fuck you have mine now!”
Your grandparents built the NHS, went through 2 world wars and a pandemic. Boomers can go fuck themselves!
Rahhhh. Did you hear that? Sounded a bit like leopard didn’t it?
“But I worked hard all my life”. Karen you’ve worked part time in a supermarket for the last 20 years. Before that a house wife.
Not saying supermarket work isn’t hard work, I know first hand it is, but it is easy for the old coasters, who are so unproductive, it actually creates more work, giving them work.
The generation who threw young generations under the bus to protect their own wealth have no one to look after them because people can’t afford to be carers? Ironic innit
Older people are now selling their homes to fund their care needs now, meaning the inheritance they hoped to pass on is now being spent keeping them alive. Those who cannot do that are struggling. If the current elderly population want this reversed then they need to demand it now, simply because it will take years of reforms, training and recruitment to fix this. It won’t be resolved over night, so there are plenty of older people who are going to find themselves in this situation shortly.
I’ve gone past caring what they elderly think. That generation clearly don’t care the state they leave the UK behind for their children and grandchildren… From economy, living conditions, rent, environment. They buggered everything up.
Government needs to do a crack down on corporations providing care. They have a scammy business model, milking both the customers and workers. For instance, company gets paid £100 per hour per customer, they pay the worker minimum wage (often less than that if you count overtime) – worker is also hired through an agency and they don’t have any rights, they spend some money on admin etc and likely half of it goes to shareholders and is siphoned out of the country to avoid paying taxes.
Care does not need to be as expensive as it is. Theyre gouging old people, the amount you are forced to spend and ultimately you’ll get someone doing it for minimum wage that has too many people to see.
Meanwhile every manager or owner of a care agency I know drive an audi or bmw.
We need rules and limits, and to integrate social care into the NHS or link them somehow because its ridiculous.
[deleted]
Six fucking days a week I worked doing healthcare, looking after elderly and people with disability. Six days a week and I only cleared £45 a day because care work only covers the time you’re with clients and none of the travel between.
I was working eight hours a day and only getting paid for five hours at MINIMUM FUCKING WAGE. I literally saved people’s lives. Gave people life saving treatments, called ambulances. Four of my clients died in a year. This a not a fucking minimum wage job. It’s not easy. It’s not relaxing, it’s fucking depressing.
I can’t stress enough how healthcare is a dead career option. I live in a very cheap accomodation and I still couldn’t save any money for anything. I only quit a few months ago and I’m still in debt from that time.
I would have made more money working four days a week working in Tesco than I did working six days in healthcare.
No sympathy at all. Collectively, the boomers as a generation have well and truly fucked this country. No they’re reaping the consequences of their actions.
If only there was some sort of democratic system by which you could, over your life, vote for policies that would make preparations for your old age long in advance
How about they start making assisted suicide a thing once you’re old and struggling. This is the option I would choose if I couldn’t look after myself anymore, and couldn’t live the life I wanted.
What the fuck do they expect from us? Care work is shit pay for the amount of work you have to do.
Once again another problem that would that wouldn’t be a problem if they paid the workers a proper wage, but nope, yet again it comes down to young people apparently being lazy and not willing to do the job. It couldn’t POSSIBLY have anything to do with the care sector being an utter shambles and massively underfunded.
Nope, young people are the problem right?
The problem is starting pay for a carer is just a little above minimum wage at around £11, while Aldi pay £13 an hour for warehouse staff.
Then there’s sickness – you daren’t turn up for work with anything that might bump off the residents so any D&V, virus stuff and we want you to stay home. We’ve had homes where 25% of staff hours in the week were called in sick. And they have to be covered, so then you’re getting agency at exhorbitant rates (not paid to the actual staff working of course, but trousered by the agency)
And one little mentioned delight – obesity. Residents aren’t little old ladies the size of a sparrow anymore, they’re increasingly great hulks who have to be winched in and out of bed, require multiple staff to handle them and frequently result in staff injuries like pulled muscles and bad backs. That isn’t going to get better.
And that’s in care homes – care in the home is in an even worse state. Because staff have to drive to clients houses they’re often working for less than minimum wage.
But 70% of residents of care homes have dementia – and only 1 in 3 people end up in care. It’s not a forgone conclusion.
Isnt the uk population growth slowing down, and set to DECLINE in coming couple of decades? if there lower birth rates, and tighter immigration, they’ll be more of a massive concern then there is now.
It’s not just older people it’s working age adults with disabilities and children who are experiencing these staff shortages. People are being left without access to food or water laying in their own mess because there’s no one to cover. It’s disgusting. We need to value people performing caring roles (paid or unpaid) and support them not force them out of the role because it’s not financially viable for them.
It’s almost as if people don’t want to work their bollocks off in a stressful environment for minimum wage.
If you improve pay and conditions the care industry staff shortages will improve.
Probably best we just ignore it for another thirty years
Social conservatism is the religion of the elderly.
Opposing change is the first commandment.
Well well well, if it ain’t the consequences of old crusty numbskulls voting for brexit.
I’m a domiciliary carer, so i support people to live in their own homes instead of going into a care/nursing home.
We are so woefully short staffed that my few recent weekends I’ve worked I’ve done a 15 hour shift with no breaks.
Its pitiful the state our elderly are in. I’ve never feared aging but I certainly do now.
It’s a dead end job that pays minimum wage.
What do they expect?
That’ll teach em for keeping on voting for the traitory party.
Wait.
Your telling me people don’t want to work for below minimum wage because they’re only paid for the time in the client’s home…. where they’re expected to give medication and clean stomas with 2 weeks training…. to be spat on and disrespected by the people they’re caring for?
I can’t imagine why.
Triple lock pensions, previously final salary
Endless spending on the NHS, 90% of which goes on the over 70s
Is anything ever enough for this fucking generation?
£1500 per week for care in a home. The actual carer who does the work gets minimum wage. Another example of syphoning all the money into the pockets of the super rich.
It’s a shame we can’t include carers in the nurse strikes
They voted leave and many European care workers left.
They thought they could get rid of foreigners and things would be fine.
Fml
I left after working 15 years in adult social care: I was emotionally and physically exhausted and burnt out. Years of being unsupported, screamed at, gaslighted, run around 3 counties as headless chicken and worst is so underpaid that I was constantly worried about getting in debt and ending up homeless. Yeah carers picking up extra shifts at thee companies and still having possibility of homelessness hanging about their heads, will change their mind about caring. Carers are expected to care but no one cares about them. Oh and don’t have me started on working every single day of week, Christmases, Easters, bank holidays because of course single people are not as important as married ones with kids so they have nothing better to do and don’t deserve same time off or decent shift patterns. Nicer and more caring you are, worst you’ll get treated.
Trouble is society does and never will value care workers.
The only time a carer becomes valued is when they are needed.
But only by the person requiring Care
‘Greed is good’, ‘no such thing as society’ really fucked up the incentives in this country. That appears to be the problem here. Everybody feels personally responsible for their success/failure and the shift to people organising their own benefits and care incentivises not “wasting money” because that invokes feelings of failure in a society where you are judged on your ability to accumulate wealth. It’s greed all the way down, but not as an individual vice, but a structural problem, a societal value.
But also, women have options now outside of being everybody else’s unpaid carer. But what was put in its place? How did we compensate societally? We didn’t, we just employed poorer people to do those roles. It was never sustainable. A society where everybody is incentivised to be selfish cannot effectively care for people who cannot participate in that for whatever reason.