Carers are definitely being exploited and as others have said they are generally women who have few employment choices and other family commitments to take into account. I share an office with local authority homecare managers and see many of the carers when they come in to consult these managers. The carers are all struggling with the time limits imposed on their visits, but to add insult to injury they have to spend a ridiculous amount of time filling in timesheets for each individual service user, which is obviously time that would be better spent providing care. The authority has now introduced yet another system whereby the carers have to log in at each address using a complicated PIN number system linked to their mobile phones, and then log out when they leave. Given the numbers of people they visit in a day this adds up to a significant amount of time spent on admin tasks. So are the managers interested in whether the care provided has been good bad or indifferent? Not unless a complaint is made. The overriding concern of senior managers is that costs should be kept down and low paid workers who are trying to do their best for their clients should not be seen to waste a moment of the authority's time. It makes me despair.
