“We don’t value our careworkers”
“We don’t value through paying our care workers, we pay them appallingly at the present time. We rely on a lot of foreign people who have come in from Europe and elsewhere to accept appallingly low wages. But if we give people proper qualifications and proper pay levels, then the people who are paying (whether it’s the local authorities or private) cannot afford… it’s bad enough as it is. So there has to be more money in the whole thing. But more especially: the carers in homes, the people actually doing caring for free, are not being properly valued. The care they are giving is not being costed at the present time. And that has to be taken into account because caring for people in their homes is far better for most people than being cared for in a hospital blocked bed. And, in the end, they may need to go into care homes. But care in the home can be a better outcome, provided you don’t get put to bed at five o’clock in the afternoon which currently is what happens with many people.”