Mencap chief ‘disappointed’ after care home rated inadequate – YorkshireLive

This is just the ‘tip of the iceberg’ for all of social care is in crisis due to very severe lack of funding, not the blame of Mencap and other providers and not the Local Authorities (LAs) for this is totally the blame of the government who have deliberately reduced LA funding since 2010 with all the austerity cuts they have imposed on LAs. This causes the LAs to have insufficient funds to pay providers to provide services, not just in care homes, but all of social care be it for children and adults including home care, supported living and others.

The rates of pay of care workers are on or just above the National Living Wage from 1 April it will be £10.42 per hour. But these workers could earn much more in other work opportunities without any of the responsibilities they need to undertake in care. This has and is further causing massive insufficiencies of care staff, which is being supplemented in some degree by agency workers.

Pay care workers what they deserve to be paid around, at least £14 per hour, but to do this the government needs to immediately stop austerity cuts and fully reimburse LAs for all the funding took away from these cuts. Even that will not be sufficient but it will be a start, for without it social care will deteriorate even further to a degree where effectively there is no real social care. Then the crisis in the NHS will become very much worse, for it is already suffering due to the current insufficiencies of social care, but it will get worse very soon if government is not willing to do the required actions. Even waiting a year could be well too late.

The NHS will continue to fail, now is this what this government really wishes for, well it could well be.

 

Source: Mencap chief ‘disappointed’ after care home rated inadequate – YorkshireLive

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Quarter of those who quit register last year had been on it for less than a year, reveals Social Work England – Community Care

Being a social worker is and will never be easy as VB stated and there does not appear to be anything coming to make any of the work any easier only very much worse.

In all areas of social care the need is so much more than any of the resources available and unfortunately I can’t see this changing anytime now. Even, if Local Authorities are aware of the problems, they themselves, in all areas, are suffering from lack of resources and this current government is far from listening and I fear the next will be very much similar for no government is prepared to fund social care to the degree that is required, even to continue as it is. In real terms the funding is decreasing requiring the little to be spread ever so thinly so the demise of social care will continue.

In this social care can’t survive and in declining further means the NHS decline will also continue.

We all need a listening government in so many areas, but social care is a very extreme situation.

I appreciate what social workers are doing with so dwindling resources, they are doing what they can and all know it is way insufficient causing ever increasing workloads with ever increasing in complexities of need.

I feel social care needs at least £12 billion now and similar for years to come, this will not only sustain social workers but be a so needed increase to the resources for all care workers.

Anything less will continue the decline., leading to so many more safeguarding alerts, which will heap more blame on social workers, when really the blame should be resting with the government, not this one current, but all previous who also failed to listen. The government are ignoring the human rights of all in need of care.

 

Source: Quarter of those who quit register last year had been on it for less than a year, reveals Social Work England – Community Care

Care homes should give hiring foreign workers a go, says minister

I do wish Ministers to have a greater understanding of what they are talking about and this to applies to Minister of State for Social Care Helen Whately MP when she states hiring foreign workers for there are many rules to abide by. Also it is not just care homes which are desperately short of staff but all areas of social care for adults and children, including home care, supported living, respite, hospises and others.

While the lack of staff is a very real problem, adding to this is the major problem of pay and the appropriate funding of social care. Currently the rate of pay is usually around the National Liviving Wage £9.50 per hour increasing to £10.42 in April 2023 for those 23 and over and in some instances the Real Living Wage of £10.90 for those 18 and over. So in April 2023, especially for those over 23 not much difference.

Especially when they could be earning much more in many other areas with much less responsibilitities such as supermarkets over £11. But for the responsibilities care workers undertake they should be earning at least £13/14. Most care workers are employed by care providers in the private sector who recieve their funding from Local Authorities, (LAs), However, these LAs have been subjected to severe austerity cuts to their funding since 2010 from many Tory governments and their current funding is not able to sustain the required increases to enable care workers to be paid more. Social care needs an urgent increase in funding currently stated to be in the region of £7 billion.

While The Health Foundation has suggested that an additional £14.4 billion a year would be required by 2030/31 to meet future demand, improve access to care, and pay more for care.

So, Helen so much more is required and while bringing in Non-UK workers would be a help it is so far from the real answers to the problems to ensure a sustained social care, which if not done will have even more problems for a continuation of the NHS.

Source: Care homes should give hiring foreign workers a go, says minister

Hunt’s Budget boosts tax relief for foster and shared lives carers and support for care leavers – Community Care

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has announced increased tax relief for foster and shared lives carers, and improved support for care leavers in his Spring Budget today.

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Yes, ‘Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has announced increased tax relief for foster and shared lives carers, improved support for care leavers and enhanced help for disabled people to enter the workplace’.

A miracle you may say for a Tory Government, but do miracles really happen, well, perhaps not.

Yes, many disabled people may wish to work and have the skills to do so, but with their disability will they be able to attend work without some assistance. If they will need assistance where will this assistance come from? Some may say family, but families are already saving the UK £billions, in fact from, a Carers UK 2021 report at least £193 billions so how much more will this government wish families to give. But families have many other commitments and could well have their own difficulties with finance and more available time.

So the alternative could well be social care, but that too is in a severe crisis which has been for many years and each coming year the crisis grows. It is requiring a massive funding  response some say as much as £7 billion, but I believe so much more at least £12 billion.

In the care profession there are major shortages of staff, so already many in need of care are not receiving any or just a little to, perhaps survive, but some maybe not. While quality care is required the lack of carers is resulting in many instances of poor care being given, not because carers are not willing to provide good quality care, but they have insufficient time to do so. Their pay for the responsibilities they undertake are also well below what they should be and this is so similar to those in childcare. Another example of a budget proposal which has not been thought through. In both childcare and social care the carers could earn so much more in areas of much less responsibility and many are leaving to do so.

But, is this government providing the funds to local authorities, (LAs) to fund this care, well the simple answer is either none or only a fraction of what is really required.

The Budget made no mention of real social care funding and in the Oppositions response to the Budget they too made no reference.

So it is not just this current government that is totally ignoring social care, but also possible future governments.

The lack of social care is causing many inequalities and many of these are also affecting the NHS, so lack of social care is also part of the NHS crisis.

But this government is not listening, either through their ignorance or by their willingness not to, which it is, is up for discussion, but I have my own views on which it is, as I believe the government is the equivalent of the ‘3 wise monkeys’.

This government just doesn’t care, the Parties may not be occurring, but the attitudes are still there.

 

Source: Hunt’s Budget boosts tax relief for foster and shared lives carers and support for care leavers – Community Care

Blue Badge campaign wins backing from Oscar-winning actress | York Press

To obtain a Blue Badge there is strict criteria and in York banning Blue Badge holders from the centre of York there is total discrimination. There is Equality Act 2010, but it is wholly insufficient and more areas need to be included to ensure full equality.

By York’s actions in means that virtually every person with disabilities have also been excluded from the centre of York, so equality is no longer available in York.

The ruling ‘LibDem/Green-run authority has said is necessary for anti-terror bollards to be installed to protect people from hostile vehicle attacks’ and while anti-terror provision needs to be considered surely a much less discriminatory action should have been taken.

Source: Blue Badge campaign wins backing from Oscar-winning actress | York Press

Rationing, not strengths-based practice, likely to explain fall in numbers receiving care, finds study – Community Care

While the funding appears to be substantial, it is far from it and the lack of social care continues to escalate and is and will lead to many more deaths.

The current figures will include those, pertaining or being assumed to be from COVID, but the figures will continue to increase while the element from COVID reduces.

The real problems are lack of resources of which staff is a major reason and the reason for this is down mainly to funding and then also the poor working terms and conditions.

For many are reluctant to enter the care profession and many others are leaving to get better paid work in other sectors with far less responsibilities and this can only get worse.

Substantial funding is required from Local Authorities, but for them to achieve this they in turn also need much more funding themselves, which can’t be obtained from any increases to Council Tax to anywhere near the required level. The government needs to, urgently, find the funds to provide this much needed funding and it has to be now. To wait another year will be way to late and many more deaths with occur.

Safeguarding is and always will be a major concern and the incidents of safeguarding will continue to escalate.

These are serious matters relating to Human Rights, which are not being respected and adhered to.

But is this government concerned, I regretfully believe that they aren’t and are not understanding the real extent of the problem, if they have any understanding of the problem at all.

Hopefully this is due to their ignorance on the subject, but is that really correct or is it that they really don’t care.

 

Source: Rationing, not strengths-based practice, likely to explain fall in numbers receiving care, finds study – Community Care

Cost of care analyses show councils lack funding to pay providers fair price, warn directors – Community Care

We all are aware, some more than others that Social care has been underfunded for many years, perhaps for all preceding years, but the austerity cuts imposed on Local Authorities (LAs) by Tory governments from 2010 and to the current day have made the underfunding much more.

But all services funded by LAs have suffered since 2010 for effectively there aren’t any real savings to be made, so services are cut, many extremely. But LAs have been left to shoulder all the blame while most of the blame should be directed to governments, this current one and all preceding governments as social care has been left to flounder by all of them. This has led for many years for the crisis in social care to deepen over these years and, while this crisis in social care has been affecting the NHS for many years, now it is so much evident, it was before, but now so more so.

The government offering a little here and a little there will have no effect whatsoever, so the government needs to do so much more.

While the costs of care exercises the LAs were required to undertake by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) by 1 February are welcomed these exercises should have been taken many years earlier. However, were or are LAs in a place to conduct this exercise, you will say that they should have been, but were they?

I say this, has it has been my experience and many other family carers and providers in the social care sector that the Assessments of Needs undertaken by many LAs have not been done as fully as they should have been for some well-meaning social workers have been informing some families and persons with unmet needs that their LA will not be able to finance all of which is required and therefore no point in including it in the assessments. This then leads to LAs not being in full understanding of what all unmet needs there are, or try to persuade by, in some instances, causing guilt on families that they should be doing more. But in reality families are doing so much already and in many instances well more than they should to maintain their own health and wellbeing, which in many, if not all are the last they consider. For this caused much of my own late wife’s and my own health deteriorations and to many other families I am aware of.

As at 2020 a saving of £193 billion (The value of unpaid care was estimated at £530 million per day and £193 billion per year during the pandemic (Carers UK, Unseen and Undervalued, 2020).

That is a very substantial amount, but family carer costs savings are not included in the Assessment of Needs when it should be significantly, as should every unmet need, even if it is being met by the family.

Unfortunately, I can’t see any improvements being made for this government and all preceding have not considered social care has an emergency service and not social care workers as being the skilled workers and extremely needed as they are. But then it comes to family carers, who are unpaid, except for the totally insufficient Carers Allowance, which is not a benefit for caring but a small amount to try to compensate for any loss of earnings incurred while caring and then it is classed as a taxable benefit!!

All care workers, social workers and all NHS workers so deserve to be paid more, but that is highly unlikely in the present climate.

The state of social care is not sustainable and has it declines so does the NHS for without sufficient sustainable funding immediately for social care and then the NHS neither will survive, then our care will be much worse than Americas, perhaps that is the governments real intention.

Source: Cost of care analyses show councils lack funding to pay providers fair price, warn directors – Community Care

Agency social worker pay to be capped to that of permanent staff – Community Care

Agency social worker pay in would be capped to the equivalent earned by permanent staff under government plans to reduce the use and cost of locums

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Another Government nail in the social care coffin, let’s be clear this government does not care about anyone except themselves.

All of social care needs much more funding, which this government and all preceding governments have failed to do.

This coupled with the austerity cuts on Local Authorities, (LAs) since 2010 will only exacerbate the problems. The government needs to see all the problems and provide all LAs the funds needed to ensure social care can survive and then be fully sustainable.

The way this government is going there will be no social workers and social care workers so social care will fail to exist, very quickly followed by the NHS.

But that won’t affect the Government as their pay increases will continue to come forth as they always do and then they will pay privately for any care they need to receive, while all others will have no social care or NHS to rely on.

 

Source: Agency social worker pay to be capped to that of permanent staff – Community Care

We can’t fix the NHS crisis until we fix our social care crisis | New Economics Foundation

I have been saying all of this for many years so it is good to see it is being recognised so much more prominently than any of my own postings but it so much needs much more prominence, especially in all areas of Government and urgently to the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak MP and Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt MP

But it could be that they are already aware but don’t really care because they feel it is not that much important when it really is but is their agenda to eventually get rid of not only social care but even the NHS. So even if you don’t currently use social care its existence is fully required if only to safeguard the NHS and who knows when you will need social care for in many instances its need comes without fore-warning. So, if it is not there or in insufficient capacity then what will happen to you, well not much and you will be left to suffer just as many are doing so currently. Not only in the NHS, but so much more so in social care.

Both the NHS and social care are extremely short of staff in all areas, perhaps in social care even more so. But it is not just staffing for the extreme shortages of finance are also resulting in other areas of resources including employment terms and conditions and many others.

Both NHS and social care are in very critical states, with social care more so and for much longer in period, for social care as never been sufficiently funded and even more so since 2010 due to the austerity cuts to Local Authorities (LAs) imposed by many Tory Governments since then.

These austerity cuts were imposed on the understanding that the cuts could be mitigated by LAs making savings, but in reality there were hardly any savings to be made, so the cuts led to cuts in services and are still doing so. The blame for all this never rested with the LAs, who have borne the brunt of the criticism, when the total blame should have been borne by each and every Tory Government.

Both social care and the NHS need urgently required sustainable funding, social care most urgently, but also Government recognition of their great importance within the UK, social care has it as never been recognised but was always so.

It will be said that the UK can’t afford to do so, but, in reality it can’t afford to not do so.

Yes, there are many on strike and proposing to do so, and yes, many do deserve more pay and better employment terms and conditions, but so do Social Care workers, perhaps much more urgently than some of those who are or about to strike.

Take pension provision where UK provision is well down on provisions in many other countries for while current salaries are important, pension provision is of equal importance, if not more so, irrespective of the age of the worker.

Social care and the NHS are so much reliant on each other for neither can exist without the other, so both need the required current and sustainable funding, now as time is not really there. The funding for both should have been sorted years ago, especially social care, but every Government in my 70 year lifetime and maybe well before as ignored both and especially social care and social care is still being ignored to a very large content for it not just needs £millions, but £billions not in years to come, but now.

To not do so, will eventually see both social care and the NHS disappear and then we will be in a much worse state than America whose Healthcare is most likely the worst in the Western World and their social care is not even mentioned.

Source: We can’t fix the NHS crisis until we fix our social care crisis | New Economics Foundation

Explainer: What pay rises have social workers received in 2022-23? – Community Care

I will bow to the judgement of Social Workers for they know their situation so much better than myself.

As many in social care or even social care in total does not have a good press and as such is not viewed as highly as it should be by many of the UK population, but follows the press and Government views and their total inaction in many instances.

When anything goes wrong, social workers are to the scapegoats and then the Local Authorities, (LAs) while the Government, current and all previous have gotten off ‘scot- free’ to a verylarge  extent.

But, in many instances it is down to the extensive reductions of Government funding for LAs through the austerity cuts from 2010 which has led to all LAs being extemely short of finance for all services in their control and social care is no exception.

This has not only led to an extensive shortage of care workers, but also social workers, which then leads to those remaining to have forever increasing workloads on top of already excessive workloads causing much extreme stress and many other health issues, thereby causing even less working for much of the time, so more increasing workloads.

All this leads to some errors to be made and these errors could well be life threatening as we have seen over the years. But is the state of the health of social workers taken into account, not as I see, but, of course the main consideration has to be the person requiring a social worker and their family. But blame needs to be placed not only to social workers and LAs, but even more so the Government. who should be mainly accountable, but never are, perhaps the Government and the Government ministers are too busy looking after themselves.

Social care and all who work in social care so deserve so much more and not the pittances that this Government is offering. To most of the UK population a £million there and another £million somewhere is a large amount and it is. But, nowhere near large enough for £billions are required just for social care, let alone the NHS.

Social care is and always will be, while it is around, an extremely needed emergency service, but is not recognised to be by the Government and to many in the UK.

I say while it is still around for the state of social care is extremely serious and may not be around in any reasonable form, if at all for much longer.

Social care needs the NHS as does the NHS need social care and when social care disappears the end will be nigh for the NHS, but many can’t see this.

This is not ‘doomsday’ thoughts, but could well be reality, if this Government and all future Governments don’t fund social care completely.

Families and their relatives are already suffering and have been for years, but still families are asked to do more. What more can they do for they are already saving care costs in the UK of £193 billion a year, up from £132 billion in 2015.

The family carers are, as always, ignoring their own health and this leads to more social care and eventually more NHS care in the long-term.

I am a former Family carer whose wife died 26 September 2020 and eventually my daughter who was receiving care on 4 October 2022, my own health has and is deteriorating and therefore I also need more care, but trying to not call on social care, as leaving it for others who need and deserve it more.

My wife’s health deteriorated considerably over many years, while trying not to call on social care and also my own health. My daughter lived with me and was in receipt of 24/7  home care and she wanted for nothing as the carers who came were all  excellent and could not have done more for it was her long standing conditions that were the cause of her demise, certainly not poor care, for her carers did all they could and so did the NHS when required. But her carers still blame themselves even though no more could have been done, this shows how so much they cared and most are still in contact with me to a large extent, even though they have their own lives to live and their families.

They earned every penny they received and should have so much received more, but Government funding dictated that they couldn’t.

Sorry for taking this away from Social workers who also deserve more, but care workers should be on at least £15 per hour and not the derisory National Living Wage of around £10 to be increased to £11 in April 2023. As the National Living Wage is wrongly named for it is so much not a living wage, even before deductions, a start would be making the taxable income level to be the National Living Wage, but even then it would fall short.

So Government all social care needs so much urgent funding not next year, but now. Safeguarding is so important but this Government appears not to care is it ignorance or design? But then no other UK Governments have been any better, will future ones be, well, I so doubt it.

 

Source: Explainer: What pay rises have social workers received in 2022-23? – Community Care