Why the British Care Sector is in Crisis

I currently work in the care sector in the UK and here are the reasons, in my opinion, we are struggling for workers. Since the beginning of the year, news outlets (such as the BBC) have been reporting that the number of care workers are declining and here is why:

1. Con artists

There seem to be very few good care companies to work for at the moment. On my team of four workers, three of us have been scammed out of wages, worked for companies that expected you to commit to a seventy-hour working week and if you challenge them on it, they cut your hours down to nothing.

It seems that, in the care sector, taking a job with a new company is a huge risk and you may not even get paid for the work you do.

I worked for one company that refused to pay me anything I'd earned and then had the audacity to say that I owed them money for my training (but refused to give me my training certificates).

I currently work for a company that take two months to process and pay my mileage and if they tell you that they are going to pay you holiday pay, you have to be meticulous with your payslip because they often don't. Until jokers like this are cut from the care sector, people just don't want to take the risk.

2. Low wages for essential people

I currently get paid minimum wage. Minimum wage in a care job, where I am responsible for a difficult and occasionally violent client. I would be better off working at Mcdonald's. The only reason I have stayed in this position is that the staff are nice, and I can do an eighteen-hour shift in one go.

The eighteen hour shifts I do though, include a seven-hour sleep in rate (this is instead of my hourly pay and much less than my hourly rate). This would not be so bad if the client was in bed, and I could actually go to sleep. But the client is often still awake at one am and I do not get paid any extra for having to be awake with him.

3. Managers with no people skills.

We have all had a rubbish manager, haven't we? Someone that seems incapable of getting dressed in the morning, never mind managing an entire team. Well, in care, it seems to be that every other manager you meet is an absolute nightmare.

Luckily, my current manager is lovely. The out of hours manager though is absolutely awful.

I have a couple of debilitating health conditions and I do my best to lead a normal life around these. But occasionally they flare up and I cannot move. One Sunday morning (three hours before my shift was due to start) I rang in as I had woken up in agony. This out of hours manager gave me a full interrogation over the phone and told me what an inconvenience I am. She then proceeded to ask whether I had "even been to the doctors" for this condition, to which my answer was "yes, I am awaiting surgery". I was feeling awful, but this conversation made me feel worse.

I reported this to my manager on the Monday, alongside giving her a doctor's note, and she apologised profusely.

Would I rather be in bed, in agony and on oramorph or go to work? I'd rather be at work. Stop acting like you are the centre of the universe.

4. Entirely profit based approaches.

It seems that most of these care companies are run by people that have never worked in care and have no idea how difficult the job can be. They are only in it for the money, pay very little and aren't interested in any day-to-day struggles.

In short, the care industry just doesn't care about its staff.