Thousands of care workers 'miss out on minimum wage'

[AAD News Feed]

Thousands of care workers 'miss out on minimum wage'

This is a duplicate of the Blog Entry made on 9th February 2015 10:08.

*More than a tenth of UK care workers are being paid less than the national minimum wage of £6.50 an hour, a study suggests. * The Resolution...

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[julian]

Re: Thousands of care workers 'miss out on minimum wage'

The people doing care work, do so now not out of professional choice, but because it brings in some money. Unfortunately the low pay and the non-payment for travelling time removes the sense of 'an honourable profession' bit by bit, as there is often no reward in caring as time with each person is so short.

And most families do much of the work for free. Once Social Services are involved regarding car, the 'client' becomes a commodity sold to the lowest bidder and removing all the families rights.

The current excuse for immigration is because we cannot support NHS and Social Service without immigration. This leave many confused and dependent people in a mess as their on/off carer cannot communicate because of language and social differences. The carers work for low pay so bringing down the general pay because they live in group houses or in residence and do not need to provide for their families. The result is that nobody 'local' appears to be interested, and it becomes the last recourse for anyone as it does not offer pay or kudos or a future.

This needs to stop. If the nurses and support workers in the UK who have left for child rearing had the same 'back to work ' incentives as the foreign recruits, eg subsidised family housing close to unit, paid visits home, training, child care and special introductory benefits, many would be back in work. Facts are that any nurse wanting to return after child-rearing must pay to re-register, travel and child care for the same wages with no family friendly working agreement. For youngsters getting into the caring professions and medicine, there is a shortage of course places, a lack of finance to pay for the courses and an academic requirement for entry. Perhaps there should be a return to ESN and RSN nursing routes and similar social caring qualifications, so that the academic and the common sense caring can be brought back into the community caring system with day centres for elderly and vulnerable.