You’re left wondering why people who can’t speak English are working in a role where communication is so important and then you see this:
> One of the workers had not passed a Secure English Language Test, which is a requirement for a work visa, so was not qualified or permitted to work in the UK.
So questions to be asked there as well. However, you also wonder how good this test is as the other worker, who presumably passed given how that sentence is written, was also there and unable to tell 999 how serious the situation was.
> The coroner noted that the carer did not appear to understand the difference between “bleeding” and “breathing”, as well as “alert” and “alive”.
I mean fuck sake.
> “They [care home staff] rang me and their English was very broken, they asked if I was Elaine Curtis and I said ‘yes’ and they said ‘your mother is dead’.
….
This is coming to a lot of us unless something changes.
I’ve worked in a carehome before. Thousands upon thousands of pounds per month so 2 carers per floor to not really look after you much. Most really struggled to speak English.
I ended up quitting knowing that no matter how hard to worked to ensure their dietary / allergy requirements were met, the person serving up would just slop it all out without care.
I’ll be self checking out long before I end up in one.
A nation that doesn’t care for her youngsters, do not deserve her elders.
Are care workers exempt from the new salary rules to work in the UK? Cos if not even a non-English speaking carer might be looked upon fondly compared to no carer at all.
Unless of course wages increase for these places and attract more people but I think we all know how likely that is.
I’ll be heading off to Switzerland for a one-way trip when the time comes.
Presumably as the the two care staff were not from the same country they couldn’t talk to each other either.
I know it’s nowhere near the same level (as someone didn’t die…), but when I went to Butlins earlier this year, every staff aside from entertainers and pool/ride operators, weren’t English speaking.
I remember going around the cafeteria asking staff for a high-chair and they just shrugged and walked away, or stated they can’t speak English.
It felt alienating and weird?
So for carers to come into your home and unable to communicate, that is a huge safeguarding risk. How do they know she’s expressing concerns or complaints? How do they leave a log or notes?
[removed]
Awfully, one of the care worker **had passed** the required English certificate for a work visa.
They still could not understand or speak English well enough to distinguish between breathing and bleeding.
My takeaway – either the exam is not fit for purpose, or (in what will shock few I think), people are paying other people to take it for them, resulting in Visa fraud, and two staff who shouldn’t have been in the UK on work visas.
I work as a support worker and we have had many staff walk through the door that struggle to understand and speak basic English. Most of the people we support struggle to speak or understand English themselves.
Most of the people we support are English and prefer english food and many staff can’t cook basic meals.
By paying such low wages and not needing any experience for these kinds of jobs it’s indirectly abusing the residents.
The employers and employees are both responsible for this. It is sad that this has happened and it should raise awareness about the carers who don’t care or cannot do the job.
And no one is punished. This should be jail for the management, shutting down the care company and potential deportation for the staff working illegally. You could maybe even argue manslaughter, but I think the CPS might “lol no” that.
So they’re going to charge the company that illegally hired this person for corporate manslaughter
Right
RIGHT?
Nobody wants to work in care. I did it for a while last year and it was the most miserable few months of my life.
I was a domiciliary carer and wasn’t paid for the walk between houses, which meant I ended up below minimum wage in a job where I was cleaning up poo, bathing people, being hit and spat on and having to provide end of life care to cancer patients.
There’s a reason care is filled with people who have no other option, and often that is literally only people from abroad who are working illegally or can’t speak English.
The care industry as a whole is a complete disaster.
I worked in it over a decade, I’d never do it again.
Nothing but Private firms that squeeze every last penny out of the elderly and their families, only to provide sub-par service.
Is it the fault of the staff? Honestly, _no_, this should be self-evident given that examples like this frequently see illegal workers or those who _will_ work for minimum wage while being overworked.
The requirements to do care work are rock bottom, the only requirements in place are down to failings in the past and an attempt to stop the same firms from repeating the mistakes – even then these are often overlooked and plenty of homes totally fail in many respects.
The “acceptable” ratio of staff to those needing care has been f*cked since it was put in place, as it totally disregards the varying level of need (you could have a home with 25 bed-bound individuals who all require staff assistance with __everything__ – from eating, dressing/changing, all personal hygiene and anything else) but _still_ get by with just 4 staff to do this.
4 is fine, you think? How exactly is that the case when taking just one person to the bathroom prior to a meal period could take 15+ mins and there’s 24 other people to also do this for? What about all the before-mentioned things like assisting them to eat/drink which can easily take the same length of time? This is while _one_ of those people is usually the shift leader and needs to also properly administrate medication for all 25….._then_ they will all need personal hygiene needs to be met before being assisted to bed.
It’s a hellish nightmare from which there is so little hope of release – families come in to visit their loved ones and leave feeling mortified, like they’ve “failed” their family by bringing them there to basically slowly die. Most have an ounce of humanity and agree the system is f*cked and we should, at least, have double the staff on a shift – bare _minimum_, in order to provide the standard of care that a human being deserves.
But the pay is rock-bottom, only increases when national minimum wage does, if you’re lucky you’ll get 50p more per hour if you do a Health & Social Care NVQ2 or 3….so go figure only the desperate will tend to work there, there’s basically zero room for self-improvement or ability to progress and make a “career” out of care unless you manage to wangle your way to management (which is just “how little can we cost the company in return for maximum profit”) or become a trainer for NVQ’s or associated requirements like Manual Handling (which is generally soul-suckingly dull, monotonous and isn’t really doing care work any longer).
The only genuinely positive things I can say about the industry as a whole is that, thank _god_, there’s a lot of very selfless and giving people still doing it, not everyone is bad, not every institution has a psychopathic bunch of tools working there and so help me the families (and those being cared for, I like to think) appreciate the incredibly hard work put in by those who _do_ care.
But likewise, there is a _lot_ of favouritism, a lot of hidden/unreported incidents/abuse that goes on and seriously isn’t a line of work anyone generally does out of choice, or to make a sustainable living/wage without leaving either/both psychologically exhausted/scarred and usually with back pain as well.
Keep cutting council budgets, keep stuffing the pockets of people who see people as wallets, keep turning a blind eye to abuse. After things go to shit, blame the person at the lowest rung of the ladder that actually works the bloody job. Bonus points if they’re one of the favourite Daily Mail ethnicities.
I’ve noticed in all sorts of care settings, there’s a large influx of staff who simply can’t communicate effectively in English.
I deal with lots of care staff in my job, particularly for juveniles in care homes, 2-1 supervision, etc. Often trying to get accurate information out of them is difficult which makes it harder when the children they look after going missing, which is why we’re normally called.
The bigger issue for me though is, that these kids in care are usually not well behaved, they’re usually proper little tearaways who cause mayhem. If you’re putting them with people who can’t effectively communicate with them at the best of times that’s a recipe for disaster. That’s not me having a go at the carers either, they’re trying, but ultimately an issue with management hiring people who can’t actually do the job effectively. They’re being set up to fail whereas their management can argue that they’ve notionally delivered what they’re paid to do.
This is Britain the Tories an Greed created. IT IS NOT THE MIGRANTS FAULT.
Its not migrants fault that the system allows such shit wages and lets companies import labour from abroad that will work for nothing.
Low wages (Greedy care home companies paying minimum wage) meant we relied on foreign (EU) workers. Brexit/Covid meant there was a huge shortage of staff in 2021, it was in the news at the time! British people don’t want the jobs because they are shit and low paid.
The care hmes started going further abroad to get workers, the Government let it happen with the visas because the media stories in 2021 were a bad look for them.
I’ve worked in care and had family members in homes/have carers.
The system is so broken.
​
Care companies line their pockets, while staff are paid pathetic wages and customers receive prison-level treatment.
This is your reward for decades of working hard and paying tax…
Short visits from underpaid, overworked, undertrained staff who rush against the clock whilst battling emotional fatigue.
They’ll do their best to provide bare minimum support to you, whilst quietly ashamed at your pathetic quality of life.
Enjoy your retirement folks.
I’m opting out.
I don’t know why euthanasia isn’t pushed for. It solves both problems of allowing people to die rather than suffer with a terrible quality of life due to age or illness and also saves billions per year in care costs.
I don’t get it? Why isn’t anyone in policitics ever pushing for this. We put animals down when they are suffering, but people are left in care homes or with awful quality of life who would rather be dead. I’m not saying this lady would want that, but if there is more money saved on the ones that opt into euthanasia then there is more money to provide better care to the ones who are able to live a more fulfilled life.
I’ve seen both grandmother’s die in care homes with Alzheimer’s and cancer. Unable to walk, or even know what day it is. One of them repeatedly told me she wants to be dead which is heartbreaking to here but even more painful knowing I can’t help her with that.
Can a politician just grow a pair of balls and push for this please.
Are your problems. Plus boomers who are now retired crying like little babies any time the government wanted to increase taxes for care homes. Germany has care home insurance paid A part of taxes. My neighbour got a £2500/week quote for her mother!!!! It’s madness
I’m just hoping my drinking gets me before I ever need any of these places!
We had the same when my grandmother needed carers. It was a complete nightmare finding people that are qualified and can speak English. These care agencies and homes are all about making money, they don’t care about looking after our elderly loved ones.
Bullshit article to drive hatred to non-English speakers. Loads of technology available to remedy these situations. Headline should be “emergency services fail to invest in adequate technology to support a multi cultural society”.
This will not be the last time this will happen.
People aget outraged about these stories but really don’t give a shit about the actual reality of the recruitment crisis in the care sector, especially if they think the state should foot the bill for everyone.
If you voted Conservative over the last 15 years, you voted for this. The budgets for carers are approved by social workers, and the budgets have been slashed into ribbons. Job retention in care trusts and companies is often a matter of weeks rather than months, with none of the labour union support that health service staff have.
No idea about their quality of care but round my way they can’t drive. Lots of older small cars driven by new arrivals up your arse, doing 40+ in a 30 and generally no road manners. A year before they can sit a test, just asking for trouble?
This is why the UK needs punitive damages. These companies who flout the law need to have real consequences. Alas, isn’t going to happen anytime soon.
When my mum was ill with motor neuron disease and frontotemporal dementia, we had carers come in a couple times a day to help me and my dad look after her (having these carers come in was a condition to having her live at home, they wouldn’t release her from hospital otherwise)
Many of them were immigrants, which is far from an issue on its own, and many of them were lovely, and they are paid far too little and screwed around by their employers far too much for the job that they do.
Many of the immigrants from Europe spoke good enough English, and were as well trained as the British born carers. But there was a subset of immigrants, who mostly seemed to have come from outside Europe, who frankly just didn’t seem to speak or understand enough English to do the job correctly. The training had clearly gone over their head, you couldn’t explain anything to them or correct them, and it made life differently for the other carers who often just did the entire job themselves while getting the carers without good English to just stand around because trying to involve them was more bothersome and often dangerous.
And to be clear I never had any reason to think they were bad people, but they were woefully unprepared for a job that you need to know what you are doing on. My mum got hurt or not cared for properly on a couple of occasions because the communication was so dismal
ah, but you see, anyone who said this might be a problem is instantaneously a racist bigot and any concern they may have about the incompatibility of different languages and cultures creating problems should be immediately dismissed as far-right nonsense.
At what point to we say, actually it is okay to blame the immigrants?
I would never dream of going to a country where I can’t speak and read the language, and then work in a medical care setting where that inability could easily get someone killed.
These immigrants, are scum.
As are their employers.
They all need to see their day in court, imo.
What a complete Joke they have turned western society into
Should be a requirement to be fluent in English to move here
32 comments
You’re left wondering why people who can’t speak English are working in a role where communication is so important and then you see this:
> One of the workers had not passed a Secure English Language Test, which is a requirement for a work visa, so was not qualified or permitted to work in the UK.
So questions to be asked there as well. However, you also wonder how good this test is as the other worker, who presumably passed given how that sentence is written, was also there and unable to tell 999 how serious the situation was.
> The coroner noted that the carer did not appear to understand the difference between “bleeding” and “breathing”, as well as “alert” and “alive”.
I mean fuck sake.
> “They [care home staff] rang me and their English was very broken, they asked if I was Elaine Curtis and I said ‘yes’ and they said ‘your mother is dead’.
….
This is coming to a lot of us unless something changes.
I’ve worked in a carehome before. Thousands upon thousands of pounds per month so 2 carers per floor to not really look after you much. Most really struggled to speak English.
I ended up quitting knowing that no matter how hard to worked to ensure their dietary / allergy requirements were met, the person serving up would just slop it all out without care.
I’ll be self checking out long before I end up in one.
A nation that doesn’t care for her youngsters, do not deserve her elders.
Are care workers exempt from the new salary rules to work in the UK? Cos if not even a non-English speaking carer might be looked upon fondly compared to no carer at all.
Unless of course wages increase for these places and attract more people but I think we all know how likely that is.
I’ll be heading off to Switzerland for a one-way trip when the time comes.
Presumably as the the two care staff were not from the same country they couldn’t talk to each other either.
I know it’s nowhere near the same level (as someone didn’t die…), but when I went to Butlins earlier this year, every staff aside from entertainers and pool/ride operators, weren’t English speaking.
I remember going around the cafeteria asking staff for a high-chair and they just shrugged and walked away, or stated they can’t speak English.
It felt alienating and weird?
So for carers to come into your home and unable to communicate, that is a huge safeguarding risk. How do they know she’s expressing concerns or complaints? How do they leave a log or notes?
[removed]
Awfully, one of the care worker **had passed** the required English certificate for a work visa.
They still could not understand or speak English well enough to distinguish between breathing and bleeding.
My takeaway – either the exam is not fit for purpose, or (in what will shock few I think), people are paying other people to take it for them, resulting in Visa fraud, and two staff who shouldn’t have been in the UK on work visas.
I work as a support worker and we have had many staff walk through the door that struggle to understand and speak basic English. Most of the people we support struggle to speak or understand English themselves.
Most of the people we support are English and prefer english food and many staff can’t cook basic meals.
By paying such low wages and not needing any experience for these kinds of jobs it’s indirectly abusing the residents.
The employers and employees are both responsible for this. It is sad that this has happened and it should raise awareness about the carers who don’t care or cannot do the job.
And no one is punished. This should be jail for the management, shutting down the care company and potential deportation for the staff working illegally. You could maybe even argue manslaughter, but I think the CPS might “lol no” that.
So they’re going to charge the company that illegally hired this person for corporate manslaughter
Right
RIGHT?
Nobody wants to work in care. I did it for a while last year and it was the most miserable few months of my life.
I was a domiciliary carer and wasn’t paid for the walk between houses, which meant I ended up below minimum wage in a job where I was cleaning up poo, bathing people, being hit and spat on and having to provide end of life care to cancer patients.
There’s a reason care is filled with people who have no other option, and often that is literally only people from abroad who are working illegally or can’t speak English.
The care industry as a whole is a complete disaster.
I worked in it over a decade, I’d never do it again.
Nothing but Private firms that squeeze every last penny out of the elderly and their families, only to provide sub-par service.
Is it the fault of the staff? Honestly, _no_, this should be self-evident given that examples like this frequently see illegal workers or those who _will_ work for minimum wage while being overworked.
The requirements to do care work are rock bottom, the only requirements in place are down to failings in the past and an attempt to stop the same firms from repeating the mistakes – even then these are often overlooked and plenty of homes totally fail in many respects.
The “acceptable” ratio of staff to those needing care has been f*cked since it was put in place, as it totally disregards the varying level of need (you could have a home with 25 bed-bound individuals who all require staff assistance with __everything__ – from eating, dressing/changing, all personal hygiene and anything else) but _still_ get by with just 4 staff to do this.
4 is fine, you think? How exactly is that the case when taking just one person to the bathroom prior to a meal period could take 15+ mins and there’s 24 other people to also do this for? What about all the before-mentioned things like assisting them to eat/drink which can easily take the same length of time? This is while _one_ of those people is usually the shift leader and needs to also properly administrate medication for all 25….._then_ they will all need personal hygiene needs to be met before being assisted to bed.
It’s a hellish nightmare from which there is so little hope of release – families come in to visit their loved ones and leave feeling mortified, like they’ve “failed” their family by bringing them there to basically slowly die. Most have an ounce of humanity and agree the system is f*cked and we should, at least, have double the staff on a shift – bare _minimum_, in order to provide the standard of care that a human being deserves.
But the pay is rock-bottom, only increases when national minimum wage does, if you’re lucky you’ll get 50p more per hour if you do a Health & Social Care NVQ2 or 3….so go figure only the desperate will tend to work there, there’s basically zero room for self-improvement or ability to progress and make a “career” out of care unless you manage to wangle your way to management (which is just “how little can we cost the company in return for maximum profit”) or become a trainer for NVQ’s or associated requirements like Manual Handling (which is generally soul-suckingly dull, monotonous and isn’t really doing care work any longer).
The only genuinely positive things I can say about the industry as a whole is that, thank _god_, there’s a lot of very selfless and giving people still doing it, not everyone is bad, not every institution has a psychopathic bunch of tools working there and so help me the families (and those being cared for, I like to think) appreciate the incredibly hard work put in by those who _do_ care.
But likewise, there is a _lot_ of favouritism, a lot of hidden/unreported incidents/abuse that goes on and seriously isn’t a line of work anyone generally does out of choice, or to make a sustainable living/wage without leaving either/both psychologically exhausted/scarred and usually with back pain as well.
Keep cutting council budgets, keep stuffing the pockets of people who see people as wallets, keep turning a blind eye to abuse. After things go to shit, blame the person at the lowest rung of the ladder that actually works the bloody job. Bonus points if they’re one of the favourite Daily Mail ethnicities.
I’ve noticed in all sorts of care settings, there’s a large influx of staff who simply can’t communicate effectively in English.
I deal with lots of care staff in my job, particularly for juveniles in care homes, 2-1 supervision, etc. Often trying to get accurate information out of them is difficult which makes it harder when the children they look after going missing, which is why we’re normally called.
The bigger issue for me though is, that these kids in care are usually not well behaved, they’re usually proper little tearaways who cause mayhem. If you’re putting them with people who can’t effectively communicate with them at the best of times that’s a recipe for disaster. That’s not me having a go at the carers either, they’re trying, but ultimately an issue with management hiring people who can’t actually do the job effectively. They’re being set up to fail whereas their management can argue that they’ve notionally delivered what they’re paid to do.
This is Britain the Tories an Greed created. IT IS NOT THE MIGRANTS FAULT.
Its not migrants fault that the system allows such shit wages and lets companies import labour from abroad that will work for nothing.
Low wages (Greedy care home companies paying minimum wage) meant we relied on foreign (EU) workers. Brexit/Covid meant there was a huge shortage of staff in 2021, it was in the news at the time! British people don’t want the jobs because they are shit and low paid.
The care hmes started going further abroad to get workers, the Government let it happen with the visas because the media stories in 2021 were a bad look for them.
I’ve worked in care and had family members in homes/have carers.
The system is so broken.
​
Care companies line their pockets, while staff are paid pathetic wages and customers receive prison-level treatment.
This is your reward for decades of working hard and paying tax…
Short visits from underpaid, overworked, undertrained staff who rush against the clock whilst battling emotional fatigue.
They’ll do their best to provide bare minimum support to you, whilst quietly ashamed at your pathetic quality of life.
Enjoy your retirement folks.
I’m opting out.
I don’t know why euthanasia isn’t pushed for. It solves both problems of allowing people to die rather than suffer with a terrible quality of life due to age or illness and also saves billions per year in care costs.
I don’t get it? Why isn’t anyone in policitics ever pushing for this. We put animals down when they are suffering, but people are left in care homes or with awful quality of life who would rather be dead. I’m not saying this lady would want that, but if there is more money saved on the ones that opt into euthanasia then there is more money to provide better care to the ones who are able to live a more fulfilled life.
I’ve seen both grandmother’s die in care homes with Alzheimer’s and cancer. Unable to walk, or even know what day it is. One of them repeatedly told me she wants to be dead which is heartbreaking to here but even more painful knowing I can’t help her with that.
Can a politician just grow a pair of balls and push for this please.
[If I speak I am in big trouble.](https://youtu.be/9wtvXoXh0VU?si=yWxpXAeIrInkqL3N)
[this](https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/how-much-money-uks-four-biggest-care-homes-make-how-much-they-pay-staff-1331067)
And
[this](https://bbcgossip.com/news/man-promised-better-life-in-yorkshire-ended-up-working-18-hour-shifts-for-29-days-and-was-paid-just-a300/)
Are your problems. Plus boomers who are now retired crying like little babies any time the government wanted to increase taxes for care homes. Germany has care home insurance paid A part of taxes. My neighbour got a £2500/week quote for her mother!!!! It’s madness
I’m just hoping my drinking gets me before I ever need any of these places!
We had the same when my grandmother needed carers. It was a complete nightmare finding people that are qualified and can speak English. These care agencies and homes are all about making money, they don’t care about looking after our elderly loved ones.
Bullshit article to drive hatred to non-English speakers. Loads of technology available to remedy these situations. Headline should be “emergency services fail to invest in adequate technology to support a multi cultural society”.
This will not be the last time this will happen.
People aget outraged about these stories but really don’t give a shit about the actual reality of the recruitment crisis in the care sector, especially if they think the state should foot the bill for everyone.
If you voted Conservative over the last 15 years, you voted for this. The budgets for carers are approved by social workers, and the budgets have been slashed into ribbons. Job retention in care trusts and companies is often a matter of weeks rather than months, with none of the labour union support that health service staff have.
No idea about their quality of care but round my way they can’t drive. Lots of older small cars driven by new arrivals up your arse, doing 40+ in a 30 and generally no road manners. A year before they can sit a test, just asking for trouble?
This is why the UK needs punitive damages. These companies who flout the law need to have real consequences. Alas, isn’t going to happen anytime soon.
When my mum was ill with motor neuron disease and frontotemporal dementia, we had carers come in a couple times a day to help me and my dad look after her (having these carers come in was a condition to having her live at home, they wouldn’t release her from hospital otherwise)
Many of them were immigrants, which is far from an issue on its own, and many of them were lovely, and they are paid far too little and screwed around by their employers far too much for the job that they do.
Many of the immigrants from Europe spoke good enough English, and were as well trained as the British born carers. But there was a subset of immigrants, who mostly seemed to have come from outside Europe, who frankly just didn’t seem to speak or understand enough English to do the job correctly. The training had clearly gone over their head, you couldn’t explain anything to them or correct them, and it made life differently for the other carers who often just did the entire job themselves while getting the carers without good English to just stand around because trying to involve them was more bothersome and often dangerous.
And to be clear I never had any reason to think they were bad people, but they were woefully unprepared for a job that you need to know what you are doing on. My mum got hurt or not cared for properly on a couple of occasions because the communication was so dismal
ah, but you see, anyone who said this might be a problem is instantaneously a racist bigot and any concern they may have about the incompatibility of different languages and cultures creating problems should be immediately dismissed as far-right nonsense.
At what point to we say, actually it is okay to blame the immigrants?
I would never dream of going to a country where I can’t speak and read the language, and then work in a medical care setting where that inability could easily get someone killed.
These immigrants, are scum.
As are their employers.
They all need to see their day in court, imo.
What a complete Joke they have turned western society into
Should be a requirement to be fluent in English to move here