Foreign social care staff to be welcomed to UK amid concerns omicron will wipe out workers

Our “taking control of our borders” nonsense is doing well isn’t it?

Our reputation as an open welcoming, tolerant nation has taken quite a bashing lately and is now pretty much shot to pieces. Look at the way Patel behaves.

So good luck with trying to recruit folk from other nations. They have better fish to fry than come here.

I thought ( may be wrong but it’s somewhere in my memory) that one of the reasons many people voted for brexit was so that it would be made easier for people from India to come and work/train here ?

Humduh

I know that sodapop but not sure this country looks after its residents when they can take others already trained

Care work is not a popular profession Humduh. As with teaching, the conditions and pay are at times so bad, native Brits won't do it. They won't accept being treated so badly.

Quite the opposite in fact. I'm a Brit and a teacher and I've worked abroad 6 out of the last 10 years. Better treatment. Better pay. I've known doctors say the same. And nurses.

I know that sodapop but not sure this country looks after its residents when they can take others already trained

sodapop

Humduh

Train the unemployed who live here

Care work is not for everyone, vulnerable people deserve carers who really want to do the job.

quite and they deserve better pay

Many years ago quite a few American and Canadian SWs were recruited and trained in Hertfordshire. Within two years they'd almost all gone back. Wasted money.

Humduh

Train the unemployed who live here

Care work is not for everyone, vulnerable people deserve carers who really want to do the job.

Train the unemployed who live here

ALANaV

SO it beggars the (maybe unpopular !) question as to why all the unemployed of the UK cannot be fast tracked, police checked, etc etc and employed by those that need them (care workers, HGV drivers, aides for the NHS .....all could be given on the job training as necessary ...........) OR could it possibly be they dont WANT this type of work, or any for that matter ??? I know when I was left as a single parent to make ends meet I did three jobs a day .....temp in secretarial work during the day, office cleaning at night, weekend work as a barmaid, and then typing at home in the evenings (I worked for the NHS on the 'twilight shift'.....i.e. typing letters and documents from 5.pm until 9.pm on the 'bank') ...I definitely had a struggle with child care as my daughter was then 6 but with a lot of discipline it all worked and no one has suffered because of it. I am now retired and cause Brexit, returned to the UK from living in France and Spain .....but having no transport (UK licence waiting to be renewed !) I find it impossible to do voluntary work as I live at the seaside and getting into the City early morning to work in a hospital voluntary capacity without transport would take about 2 hours ....doesn't appear to be anywhere locally I can volunteer !....working on it ....

There are certain abilities required to do care work - and HGV driving, come to that. Neither of those jobs is an easy job, and if you don't have the right temperament - especially in the 'care' sector, vulnerable people will suffer.
Some of those who are long term unemployed are, to put it politely, difficult to place because they have few skills. A member of my family was in this position. He did - willingly - one job after another but ultimately was always sacked because he just couldn't get his act together, had no social skills and couldn't get to grips with the discipline required to hold down a job.
The idea that there's a pool of unemployed people too lazy to get a job is, I believe, something of a myth. Of course there are some who are gaming the system - inevitably. But I think the long term unemployed are sometimes just unemployable.
Caring for people, sometimes intimately, really isn't for everyone and you really have to employ people with the right skills, including empathy... not just put them to work because they are unemployed.

Good post Greta.

Some things never change.

Leaving aside the fact that this country is drastically short of people who can work as carers, we still get comments about "where are those foreigners going to live". Makes my blood boil.

Bodach: ”How is this "Backpedaling (sic) on Brexit"? Surely this is part and parcel of Brexit - that we can decide what immigrants we need to meet specific skill shortages, rather than be open to all EU-comers?”

Good luck with that. This was just another Brexit lie, i.e. that we can now pick and choose at the same time as we are pursuing a policy of hostile environment to immigrants. People will actually have to want to come here. We can just whistle and they will come. The arrogance of it all beggars belief.

SO it beggars the (maybe unpopular !) question as to why all the unemployed of the UK cannot be fast tracked, police checked, etc etc and employed by those that need them (care workers, HGV drivers, aides for the NHS .....all could be given on the job training as necessary ...........) OR could it possibly be they dont WANT this type of work, or any for that matter ??? I know when I was left as a single parent to make ends meet I did three jobs a day .....temp in secretarial work during the day, office cleaning at night, weekend work as a barmaid, and then typing at home in the evenings (I worked for the NHS on the 'twilight shift'.....i.e. typing letters and documents from 5.pm until 9.pm on the 'bank') ...I definitely had a struggle with child care as my daughter was then 6 but with a lot of discipline it all worked and no one has suffered because of it. I am now retired and cause Brexit, returned to the UK from living in France and Spain .....but having no transport (UK licence waiting to be renewed !) I find it impossible to do voluntary work as I live at the seaside and getting into the City early morning to work in a hospital voluntary capacity without transport would take about 2 hours ....doesn't appear to be anywhere locally I can volunteer !....working on it ....

Lincslass

MayBee70

Lincslass

MayBee70

Why would someone uproot their whole family for 12 months and move to a country that has made them feel unwelcome in the past? They’ll have to be paid a lot more than they were before as an incentive. Will we be welcoming seasonal crop pickers next summer as well given that us oldies decided we didn’t want to do the work?

Us oldies did. do the work love, back in the day. Did you.

How patronising.Well, love … I worked for the NHS until I retired. Arthritis means that I would struggle to do any work that was remotely physical and I’m sure that a lot of retirees like myself are the same physically.

So did I, and before that care home work. As a 12 year old worked on land , as you could do in those days. Your post saying us oldies didn’t want to do that sort of work, don’t you think us oldies have done enough of that sort of work. Even now I suffer with a back problems caused by moving and handling before the days of aids.

Methinks we’ve both misunderstood the points we were making. I apologise if I did.

How is this "Backpedaling (sic) on Brexit"? Surely this is part and parcel of Brexit - that we can decide what immigrants we need to meet specific skill shortages, rather than be open to all EU-comers?

There is a lot of old fashioned language being used on this thread.

Foreign carers are already here being employed at a rate of knots by agency care companies. Central government need to increase what they give to local authorities to increase social care pay. It may be that simple...of course they could have not cut it in the first place but it is what people voted for...so

MayBee70

Lincslass

MayBee70

Why would someone uproot their whole family for 12 months and move to a country that has made them feel unwelcome in the past? They’ll have to be paid a lot more than they were before as an incentive. Will we be welcoming seasonal crop pickers next summer as well given that us oldies decided we didn’t want to do the work?

Us oldies did. do the work love, back in the day. Did you.

How patronising.Well, love … I worked for the NHS until I retired. Arthritis means that I would struggle to do any work that was remotely physical and I’m sure that a lot of retirees like myself are the same physically.

So did I, and before that care home work. As a 12 year old worked on land , as you could do in those days. Your post saying us oldies didn’t want to do that sort of work, don’t you think us oldies have done enough of that sort of work. Even now I suffer with a back problems caused by moving and handling before the days of aids.

Daisend1 many hotels must be partly empty. Look at all the office blocks that lie empty when they could be used for accommodating the people. It wouldn't cost that much for conversion----not as much as the test and trace debacle, eh ?

Them pesky furriners can just come here, work for us and sleep in hostels. They should be grateful that we’re going to allow them back on our hallowed turf

EllenVannin
Fares paid is just the start. What accommodation will there be for those intent on bringing family with them? Isn't there a housing shortage in the UK? I know there is in my part of the country where we have two large hospitals who no doubt would welcome extra staff, but????.

Their fares should be paid for them, or at least subsidised. Afterall, it wasn't their faults that this country has tin-pot ideas about running it..

Lincslass

MayBee70

Why would someone uproot their whole family for 12 months and move to a country that has made them feel unwelcome in the past? They’ll have to be paid a lot more than they were before as an incentive. Will we be welcoming seasonal crop pickers next summer as well given that us oldies decided we didn’t want to do the work?

Us oldies did. do the work love, back in the day. Did you.

How patronising.Well, love … I worked for the NHS until I retired. Arthritis means that I would struggle to do any work that was remotely physical and I’m sure that a lot of retirees like myself are the same physically.

Can't see this 'invitation' tempting many.

I’m not sure of the present situation but a lot of care workers were Filipino rather than European, they would not have been affected by Brexit. In any case in the current pandemic situation I don’t see many travelling any time soon, maybe April or later.

Who is to blame for the lack of care staff. You can’t force people to work in an environment of poor pay, terrible work patterns, were you can get abused, attacked by your clients. We were very lucky, one of our local care homes is very well run, amazing staff, mostly local men, and women. Care of residents was exceptional, not all are as pleasant a place to work in. I find small town areas are better placed for staff, Lager cities seem to be the ones struggling. It is down to the care homes to make this valuable work more appealing, offer better pay, more family friendly shift patterns. I worked in a local authority home for 5 years , well run, good shift patterns , not 12 hours as now in some cases. We are not the only country suffering from shortage of care home staff, Germany has a massive problem. Perhaps spending money locally in offering good wages and better working conditions , rather than flying in overseas staff at a huge cost, might be an answer.