Category Archives: Care workers

UK home care workers cannot work as visa regime tightened, says employer

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Grosvenor says it is prevented from making 3,000 visits a week as it pays migrant workers to sit at home because permits not renewed

One of the UK’s biggest home care providers says it is paying dozens of migrant workers to sit at home and do nothing because the Home Office has not renewed key immigration permits.

Thousands of workers, mostly from Africa, were welcomed into the UK to help fill the one in 10 care worker jobs vacant after the Covid crisis. But after scammers abused the system, leading to allegations of modern slavery, the government appears to have tightened the application of the rules.

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Norfolk care home accused of waking residents with loud music to save money

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Staff at Iceni Care Home say vulnerable residents were treated as if they were ‘on a farm’ to reduce workload

Care workers at a private care home forced dementia sufferers out of bed as early as 5am and woke them by blasting loud radio music to save money, whistleblowers have alleged.

The management of Iceni Care Home in Swaffham, Norfolk, received repeated complaints about the practice this summer, as concerned staff said vulnerable residents were being treated as if they were “on a farm” in order to reduce the workload on daycare staff.

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How Labour’s plan for ‘fair pay deals’ looks to solve UK social care crisis

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Underfunded, overstretched sector to become testing ground for battle against low pay but critics say policy is weak and vague

“My sister is a care worker. She was a care worker during the pandemic. Fourteen-hour shifts, often overnight. Unimaginable pressure. And the reward? A struggle every week – and I mean every week – just to make ends meet.”

So spoke Keir Starmer last month, drawing on experience close to home in his party conference speech to underline his determination to overhaul the cash-strapped social care sector.

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Sunak and Johnson pushed repeatedly against autumn lockdown, inquiry told

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Covid investigation also told taskforce coordinating pandemic policy had no warning of ‘eat out to help out’

Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson pushed repeatedly against lockdown measures during the second wave of Covid in autumn 2020, with the government’s chief scientist accusing the then chancellor of using “spurious” arguments against new rules, the inquiry into the pandemic has heard.

In a day of evidence that placed increasing focus on Sunak’s role, the inquiry also heard that his flagship “eat out to help out” hospitality scheme was imposed without consulting the government’s Covid taskforce, leaving officials “blindsided” by the Treasury.

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‘It’s almost magical’: how robotic pets are helping care home residents

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Animatronic cats that purr and dogs that wag their tails have helped staff at Oak Manor care home in Bedfordshire to avoid medicating some residents with dementia

“You’re bloody lovely ain’t you,” said Frances Barrett, as the robotic cat she was stroking flicked its ears and whiskers one lunchtime this week at the Oak Manor care home in Bedfordshire.

The resident was one of several who live with dementia playing with the home’s small menagerie of animatronic animals that were originally designed to entertain American girls aged four to eight but have found a fast growing market in British care homes.

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Home care providers in England fear collapse over unpaid invoices

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One in five firms see risk of financial failure in next six months due to sums owed by NHS and councils

Dozens of home care companies in England fear collapse because invoices are going unpaid by councils and the NHS.

Hundreds of millions of pounds in unpaid bills are threatening parts of a care industry already stretched by a recruitment crisis and rising wages, according to research by the Institute of Health and Social Care Management (IHSCM).

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‘Sold a dream’: migrant workers at children’s care chain left without pay for months

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They came to fill gaps in a sector desperate for staff. Now an Observer investigation finds Indian nurses stuck in debt and despair, and wounded by broken promises

Nurses hired from abroad to work for one of Britain’s biggest social care chains have been left in debt and are in some cases suicidal after being stranded without pay for months.

They have also been paid lower wages than they were told they would receive and were in some cases given false promises about their accommodation and employment terms, an Observer investigation has found.

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Covid inquiry reveals fresh battle for release of government messages – UK politics live

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Lawyer for Covid inquiry announces ‘regrettable’ delays in handing over of information by government

Q: What would the minimum wage for workers be under your fair pay agreement for care workers? (See 10.47am.)

Starmer says his sister is a care worker. He knows how hard the job is.

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Half of UK public fear family would not be well looked after in care homes

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Survey also reveals nine out of 10 older people believe there are not enough care staff in the country

Trust in care homes has slumped, leaving half of the British public lacking confidence that friends or family would be well looked after.

Nationwide polling for the Guardian revealed nine out of 10 older people believe there are not enough care staff, and half have lost confidence in the standard of care homes since the start of the pandemic.

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Care home where staff were filmed abusing 88-year-old is still breaking rules

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Inspectors find lack of trained staff at Reigate Grange and medicines not being administered properly

A £2,400-a-week care home where staff were secretly filmed abusing 88-year-old Ann King is still breaking Care Act regulations despite a public outcry over her treatment.

Recent inspections of Reigate Grange revealed there were still not enough trained staff, medicines were not being administered properly and the home to 74 people was “not always safe” and “not always well led”. The “luxury” home is marketed as offering the “highest possible standards of assisted living with the best possible care”.

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Council providing three-minute care visits to vulnerable – ombudsman

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Overworked staff allocated extremely short care calls by local authority struggling to meet users’ needs

Care workers are taking as little as three minutes to help vulnerable people in their own homes, the social care ombudsman has found, after discovering a council was allocating extremely short visits to hundreds of people.

Amid chronic staff shortages and rising unmet care needs nationwide, a homecare worker commissioned by Warrington borough council sometimes stayed for just three minutes, despite the family paying for the full visit. The council was found to have allocated 15-minute care calls to more than 300 people in the region, despite national guidance stressing these were “not usually appropriate”.

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Care workers hit back at Matt Hancock’s claim staff brought Covid to care homes

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Most cases not caused by decision to discharge patients from hospital without testing, says former health secretary

Care workers have hit back at claims by the former health secretary Matt Hancock that the Covid virus was brought into homes by infected staff.

In his book, the Pandemic Diaries, which is being serialised in the Daily Mail, Hancock said only a small proportion of cases were caused by his decision to discharge patients from hospital without testing.

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England’s social care workforce shrinks for first time in 10 years

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Experts say loss of 50,000 workers exposes ‘absolute crisis’ facing system still reeling from impact of Covid and Brexit

The social care workforce has shrunk for the first time in almost a decade despite rising demand and bed congestion in hospitals fuelled by a lack of care places.

England is projected to need close to 500,000 more care staff by the middle of the next decade, but last year there was a net fall in the workforce of 50,000 people, leaving about 165,000 jobs vacant, according to new figures from Skills for Care.

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Live-in care workers ‘have pay docked by agencies to cover accommodation’

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New report says policy changes are needed to protect ‘hidden workforce’ from exploitation

Live-in care workers recruited from overseas to care for disabled and elderly people in Britain are being exploited by “unscrupulous” agencies who dock their pay to cover “accommodation costs”, according to new research.

The workers, who live with clients to provide round-the-clock care, in some cases had their pay reduced by hundreds of pounds a month despite being paid only the minimum wage to begin with.

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Labour to aim to launch national care service inspired by creation of NHS

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Exclusive: shadow health secretary says service in England would be brought in over several parliaments

Labour will aim to bring in a national care service in England with just as much ambition as the 1945 government that brought in the NHS, the shadow health secretary has said, launching a review of how it would work.

In an interview with the Guardian, Wes Streeting said he had asked the Fabian Society to look at how the service would be funded and structured, with a view to bringing it in over the course of several parliaments.

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Coronavirus report warned of impact on UK four years before pandemic

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Exclusive: Report from planning exercise in 2016 alerted government of need to stockpile PPE and set up contact tracing system

Senior health officials who war-gamed the impact of a coronavirus hitting the UK, warned four years before the onset of Covid-19 of the need for stockpiles of PPE, a computerised contact tracing system and screening for foreign travellers, the Guardian can reveal.

The calls to step up preparations in areas already identified as shortcomings in the government’s response to Covid, emerged from a previously unpublished report of a health planning exercise in February 2016 that imagined a coronavirus outbreak.

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Haitians fleeing and Hotel Rwanda case: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Myanmar to Germany

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Angela Rayner: ‘We don’t want to be an opposition, we want to be a government’

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Labour’s deputy leader opens up about being a carer, byelections, and achieving a ‘cultural shift’ in the workplace

Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, has said her own experience as a care worker helped to convince her more flexible working could be a “win-win” for staff and employers.

Speaking to the Guardian after announcing new policies last week on employment rights and flexible conditions, Rayner said she had helped negotiate family-friendly working when she was a trade union representative.

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England’s ‘freedom day’ to be day of fear for elderly people, charities warn

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Vulnerable and immunocompromised people anxious about 19 July end to Covid rules

Boris Johnson’s “freedom day” will be a day of fear for elderly and vulnerable people and those with compromised or suppressed immune systems, for whom the efficacy of vaccines is much reduced, charities have warned.

Citing the statement by the new health secretary, Sajid Javid, that Covid infections could surge to a record 100,000 a day in a few weeks after all social distancing and mask-wearing regulations are removed in England, Blood Cancer UK has said that 19 July “will be the day that it feels like freedoms are being taken away from” many people.

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‘Protect and invest’: WHO calls for 6m more nurses worldwide

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Warnings of brain drain from developing world as Covid adds to numbers of nurses leaving profession

Health ministers around the world are being urged to sign off on plans to create 6m more nursing jobs by 2030, amid warnings that Covid-19 has exacerbated a global shortage and could spark a “brain drain” from the developing world.

Delegates meeting virtually this week at the World Health Assembly, the key decision-making body of the World Health Organization, are expected to adopt a resolution calling on countries to transform the nursing profession through more investment, support and training.

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