Why do we care so little for care workers?
IAN BIRRELL’S article ‘Why does Britain care so little for its sick and elderly?’ was insightful, poignant and spot-on. Our care system has been getting worse as fewer people opt to work in the care sector. Sadly, a great deal of the blame lies with care providers that fail to look after and retain kind, hard-working staff. Caring can bring so many rewards, but it is undervalued — carers, many of whom have NVQs up to level 3 and 4, earn barely the national living wage. Sadly, as carers become demoralised and fed up, more people leave and fewer apply, so the crisis deepens. CHRISTOPHER JAMES, Evesham, Worcestershire, YES, social care is in crisis as the number of unfulfilled posts in social care rises to 110,000 (Mail). Social care not only provides essential support to those in need, but it acts as a bedrock for local economies in the amount of people that it employs. While the promised Social Care Green Paper may tinker around the edges, the sector needs resources now. The sector is caring, kind, efficient and innovative, but cannot run on thin air.
PROFESSOR MARTIN GREEN, chief executive of Care England, London E1. THE Health and Social Care Secretary’s pledge of £240 million emergency funding for social care is a step in the right direction. But why is the social care sector set to receive only this amount when the NHS will receive an extra £20.5 billion? Both sectors offer vital services and are under unprecedented pressure. People often find themselves trapped in hospital beds through no fault of their own. This has been frustrating because there are solutions on offer that have not been taken up on a wider scale. Anchor’s successful trials offering ‘re-ablement’ beds at a care home in Birmingham have shown that better alignment of the health and social care sectors can improve lives and save the NHS hundreds of thousands of pounds. JANE ASHCROFT CBE, chief executive at
Anchor Care Homes, London.