Coffey unveils £500m adult social care grant to free up hospital beds – Community Care

Health and social care secretary Thérèse Coffey has unveiled a £500m adult social care grant to free up hospital beds and bolster the care workforce

==============================================

As is usual the Health and Social care secretary Therese Coffey, mp doesn’t hav e a clue for the crisis in Social Care goes far deeper than hospital beds and £500 million is way too little for all of the following have to be sorted

1. payrates, for these are so abysmal and urgently greatly improved
2. working conditions, including recognised holiday pay, sick pay, appropiate travel expenses, recognised career progression
3. bank holidays to be recognised, like additional enhanced pay rates for working Bank Holidays, together with a day in lieu
4. much more investment for non-UK workers
5. and much more

Then more persons could be encouraged to enter the social care profession.

But to offer a measly £500 million is the biggest joke ever.

Unfortunately social care has been, deliberately ignore by this and all previous Governments. The care of our most vulnerable and this includes children as well as adults, so it is not just care homes, but also home care, supported living, respite, hospices. etc.

Source: Coffey unveils £500m adult social care grant to free up hospital beds – Community Care

Advertisement

Adult social care vacancy rate hits 10% – Community Care

There appears to be some misconception both in the article and in some of the comments.

In the article. ‘the 1.25 percentage point rise in national insurance contributions and dividend taxes introduced this month’ is being split between the NHS and Social Care over 3 years, with, initially the bulk of the money going to the NHS. Even if £500 million is being promised for Social Care is is way below the amounts that are required which is more like, £12 billion, which will only bring funding back to 2010 levels, which then was wholly insufficient.

Then is the social care funding for council run Adult Social Care or for care workers in care homes, home care, respite care, supported living, hospices, etc or both.

The rate of pay for care workers is also wholly insufficient now a minimum, the National Living Wage of £9.50 per hour and not the £10.10 being offered to non-UK workers, while it should be a minimum of the Real Living Wage of £9.90. But, workers can get £14/15 per hour at Supermarkets for much less responsibilities. Care staff have the life of the persons needing care in their hands, not just providing personal care of washing, dressing and toileting, but dispensing medication, meal preparation, emotional support, managing finances, ensuring safeguarding and much more.

It is not just that care is in the private sector, for some councils also have care workers, maybe not employed directly, but through agencies with a long-arm connection, where care rates may be slightly higher but not by much. If done correctly it is a very demanding profession, not the misconception of many that it is unskilled for it does take great skills to provide care consistently of good quality. The workers, if providing good quality care should be respecting their choices and dignity of those to whom they provide care to and not just provide care how they wish for care should be person-centred.

But there are unsocial hours too much travel time and not fully funded, if at all, training should be first class and relevant and much more.

Social care has always been the very poor relation of the NHS, when it should be held in equal esteem by both Government and the UK population and has never been sufficiently funded and even more so over the last 12 years or so.

If more is not done for social care and done urgently, then the quality and quantity of care will be severely diminished to where it is not really available. This will create even more pressures on a currently over-burdened NHS.

You may not, currently require Social Care, but when you do or a family member does then you may find it is not there and it is not just social care for the elderly but for any age starting at times from birth and |COVID| is increasing demand on Social Care as well as the NHS.

Don’t be fooled by the very ignorant and discriminative Government. who are just following many other Governments before them of any Party.

 

Source: Adult social care vacancy rate hits 10% – Community Care

Family of autistic man plan legal challenge over care conditions | Social care | The Guardian

Campaigners are calling for greater efforts to provide care in the community for people with severe learning disabilities. Photograph: AA Pix/Alamy

I have for years been saying that funding for social care is extremely important, but until recently I feel no one has been listening. That is certainly true about this Government for even now they are not listening and when it comes down to the facts, it is because, in reality, they do not even care.

I therefore support this legal challenge in every aspect.

To remedy the funding situation this Government needs to immediately refund to all Local Authorities (LAs) all the money withheld by Austerity Cuts and fully refund all the COVID costs LAs have had to encounter.

Only then will there be any chance that social care could be improved and in doing so relieve some of the burden the lack of social care has been causing to the NHS and the resulting effects on health care.

But there are also other measures this Government could do, one of which to immediately allow more non-UK citizens the enter the UK so they can be employed in social care for this would go a long way to ensure more persons would be available to work in social care. But also to ensure funding is sufficient to LAs so that care providers can be able to pay their care workers a more reasonable salary, to the extent of at least £14 per hour rather that the current National Living wage of £8.91or even the Real Living wage of £ 9.90 out of London (£11.05 within London).

But others need to be improves which includes

realistic sick pay rates

travel rates

unsocial hours rates

working conditions

and more

Social care is just as important as the NHS as both are inter-reliable on each other.

Source: Family of autistic man plan legal challenge over care conditions | Social care | The Guardian

£300m boost for adult social care workforce through winter – Community Care

True there are some care providers who do cream off money but they are few and far between.

I am a family carer, those who provides care and are unpaid, but with advancing years and deteriorating health I now can’t provide the care required. So I applied to our Local Authority for a Direct Payment so I could employ carers myself and when we did in 1988 the rate allowed by our Local Authority was very good, but since 2010 when it was £7.20 per hour the value of the rate continued to deteriorate.

From 2011 to 2015 I was allowed only one rate uplift, which brought the rate to £8.00 per hour and in 2016 requested another and that was granted in 2019 to £9.00 per hour.

During 2020 no uplifts were allowed for anyone using Direct Payments, but a good uplift was granted in 2021 being £9.50 per hour.

However, while it was a good rate in care those care workers could have earned around £14 per hour in a supermarket or Amazon, with much less experience and responsibility required.

So, the rate for care work is in no way sufficient and no I am not creaming off any money for the LA only pays sufficient for the rate in question. Care workers in providers are getting similar.

By saying what you do you are degrading care workers and the whole care profession.

Hardly anyone wishes to come into care to receive abysmal rewards. For to do care work to a good recognised standard considerable training, dedication and the will to provide good quality care is required.

The miserly £300million goes nowhere near far enough, as it is well short of the required £1.5 billion requested. Even that falls far short of what is required to bring pay levels back to 2010, which would require at least £12 billion.

But, even that falls far short of what should be coming from this Government, for it is not just pay rates that need to be improved.

There needs to be a

recognised sick pay arrangement

alterations to the UK Immigration regulations to allow more persons wishing to do care work from outside the UK

sufficient travel expenses

allowances for unsocial hours working

and much more.

Care work is in very grave danger of being ‘run into the ground’ causing even more problems for persons requiring care, leading to calamitous deteriorations of persons in need of care and also their families, which will greatly increase the demand for care from the NHS.

We are quickly sliding into Victorian conditions, when care for the poor and vulnerable was non-existent.

 

Source: £300m boost for adult social care workforce through winter – Community Care

Homecare costs outstrip funding from councils, says report – BBC News

Well, at long last home care is getting some coverage, for on the few occasions social care is mentioned it is usually only regarding care homes and the elderly. But Social Care is much more than that, for there is home care, respite, care, supported living, hospices and more and covers both children and adults.

Here we have home care, which as stated, is mostly paid for through local authorities (LAs) who obtain their funding from Government. However, LAs have suffered 10 years of austerity cuts and going on 2 years of increased costs from COVID and are still not being paid the equivalent to what they were being paid in 2010. So, there is major Government failings here.

Home carers are paid, mostly from £8.91 per hour,the National Living Wage to £9.50 per hour, the Real Living Wage. So, the Care Providers have to be paid much more so they can pay their care workers, which is why there are much higher rates mentioned in the article. For Care providers, have other expenses than just paying care workers, being, office expenses, administration staff salaries, training, recruitment, payroll costs, etc.

In the article it is stating that the pay rate needs to increase to £11.20 per hour, but this is the very bare minimum, but to have any real affect the rate needs to be increased to at least £14.00 per hour and more likely £15 per hour, to offset the rates at Amazon and some supermarkets.

Most people, even the Government class care work as unskilled when it is far from it, as to provide good quality care the care workers need to know who they are caring for, provide emotional support as well as personal care, respect the choices of the person being cared for and their property, be able to understand how to use all the equipment the care for person has, adjust the care to how the person being cared for is on any particular occasion, provide meals as wished for by the person being cared for, understand their medication and much more. So, depending on the person being cared for it is very skilled to provide good quality care. Therefore not everyone is capable of being a skilled care worker.

Due to the insufficient pay there are a vast number of vacancies in social care and to get anywhere near the numbers required the UK Immigration Policy has to be altered to enable more workers from out of the  UK to gain entry to work in the UK. and this needs to be done urgently.

So, much needs to be done in respect of social care in the UK and this starts with the Government

Source: Homecare costs outstrip funding from councils, says report – BBC News

Experienced care staff earn 6p an hour more than newcomers – Community Care

All of this was predictable, but the Government did or does not care.

Yes, I agree the £9.50 out of London needs to be the base rate, but that is only a start, for the actual base rate needs to b e much more and then more persons with the responsible degrees of care could be more willing to join the care profession.

In line with this the Government needs to ensure that UK immigration is amended to allow persons out of the UK to come to the UK to work in the care profession. It is a must and it needs to be done urgently as care can not wait much longer.

What this Governments needs to understand is all this reluctance to act to save the care profession and those who need care, is having great adverse affects on the health service. For any lack of care means more demands on the health service. So when the health service fails and it will without Government action on the care profession, the blame will be laid fully at the door of this government.

 

Source: Experienced care staff earn 6p an hour more than newcomers – Community Care

Petition – Pay all employed carers the Living Wage

The petition – Pay all employed carers the Living Wage closed on the 23 July 20189 with 1037 signatures. While, initially, I was hoping for more, I do thank all of you who decided to sign the petition and in doing so showed your support for Care Workers in the Caring Profession.

Petition:   https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/236151

Map:        https://petitionmap.unboxedconsulting.com/?petition=236151

From the map you will see there has been support, virtually all over the UK, from Inverness and also Banff and Buchan in the North of Scotland, to Ashford in Kent in the South East of England, to Truro and Falmouth in Cornwall in the South West of England, the Isle of Wright (IoW) and Northern Ireland. Great that IoW created 21 signatures. The largest number of signatures being 45 in Penistone and Stocksbridge in South Yorkshire.

But it was not a contest, but a way of bringing the abysmal pay of Care Workers to the attention of people within the UK, for most care workers will only be receiving between £8.21, the National Living Wage and £8.50, just below the Living Wage, that is, outside of London. But the £8.21 is only guaranteed to persons 25 and over, for person 21 years the minimum is £7.70.

Where good quality care is being provided, it is not just about providing care, for there are several responsibilities which must be undertaken. It goes without question that the care worker shows respect and dignity to the person in need of care, their property and members of their family and friends and works to ensure safeguarding is paramount. Where the care is being undertaken within the persons own home or that of their family then the usual home routine needs to be understood and adhered to.

Team working is essential, not only between the care workers attending, but the person in need of care and their family. It is not for the care worker to assume they work as they wish, but to follow all reasonable instructions in undertaking their duties.

So, when providing care there are a host of responsibilities to abide by, which may not be there in other forms of employment.

People can obtain £10.00 – £12.00 working in a Supermarket, when many of these responsibilities may not be relevant.

The low rate of pay within the care profession is a disgrace, when effectively the carer workers have a persons ‘life in their hands’.

As the petition stated, this is, in many respects down to the austerity cuts to Local Authorities and this needs remedying with immediate effect. Boris has said his Government will look at Social Care. I feel this should be immediately as this, in many respects, is more urgent than Brexit, which is itself urgent. But Social Care has been left behind for far too long.

This profession does need support for without these care workers, persons in need of care will be left without. This will lead to social and health inequalities, which will have a substantial effect on the NHS, at a time when the NHS, itself is suffering from some forms of inadequate investment.

Pay is but one area, for there are many others in need of consideration.

Some will include:

Consistent standards relating to care

Other financial considerations, being sick and maternity pay, travel expenses, etc

Care workers and persons in need of care being listened to when they see and report areas of not good care, for no one should be penalised for speaking out

And there are many others

Care workers need a professional organisation, which is something I am looking at and will be coming to you soon for your comments, consideration and maybe assistance.

Family Carers do what they can, but eventually, mainly due to advancing years and in conjunction with declining health, there comes a time when they can not provide the care to their relatives, even though they are still willing to.

Care has been underfunded for many years and austerity is but the latest cause. Even if people do get a care package this may not be enough for all their needs and therefore their quality of life suffers.

Action or actions need to be taken.

So watch this space.