Care companies handing back contracts

When I first joined a Care Company, it had only just been privatised and there was no pension scheme, only the minimum sick pay and no holiday pay, so obviously not the overheads that are now rightly having to be observed. A lot of us were ladies with working husbands, so money wasn't a particular issue, although it was a vague grumble at times. We were fortunate in that we were paid time and a half on Saturdays, double time on Sundays and bank holidays, and time and a half between 7 in the evening and 7 the next morning. so I suppose it all came out in the wash so to speak. We all loved the job and the feeling that we were making a difference to vulnerable people's lives seemed to override other considerations.

Nigglynellie, you and your colleagues enabled social work teams to arrange appropriate levels of quality care. We are all paying for a lesser service now, which ever department pays the bill. The discussion about combining health and social care was happening forty years ago, probably before then. It still is being discussed with no resolution in sight.
Daphne is right criticise the deterioration in service and poor working conditions. Private isn't always better, public isn't always worse. Good quality public services aren't inexpensive. We can afford to do better. The Netherlands, Germany and the Scandinavian countries do better and so should we.

No, they don't *gillybob. Some of them are very dodgy. They might pay minimum wage, but some of them claim their employees are self-employed, so don't pay NICs and wriggle out of statutory responsibilities. A court case ruled that travel time between clients is tax deductible, but some of these companies still don't pay a wage for the time, nor do they pay for enough time for care workers to do their job properly.

Care workers are human too and deserve to be treated fairly andprofessionally. They should be offered decent training and career progression. Most companies don't take this aspect seriously. They deserve sick pay, maternity pay and pension contributions, etc.

Treating them badly is just storing up problems somewhere else. When they get to pension age, they might have to rely on Pension Credit (paid for by the taxpayer) or they might have to rely on Tax Credits and Housing Benefit (also paid for by the taxpayer).

The overall result is that there armies of care workers who don't feel respected and it's no wonder that some of them will look for work in other sectors or do a botch job.

That sounds wonderful nellie. Sad that increasing numbers of v old, plus more far-flung families, plus Tories who don't give a toss has led to the present state of affairs. And not due to get better any time soon.

Care providers can only pay their employees in line with what the LA pays them . Nothing to do with primates !

You have my utmost respect Niggly I looked after my grandma for years and I loved her so it was never "work" for me but to care for complete strangers is a gift .

I worked as a care worker in the community for over 20 years on Exmoor and surrounding villages/towns, straying as far as Tiverton on occasion! I loved the job and got a lot of satisfaction from it in the belief that I was making a difference. However, over the years it changed beyond all recognition and although in the early days the pay was pretty dismal, we did get paid for mileage and for travel time between clients, also we were allowed enough time (1 hr) to bath, make the bed , breakfast, a quick tidy up, put on washing and so on. half an hour at lunch to make a proper (!) meal, clear it away, hang any washing etc, evening either 15 min pop in just to make sure all was well pills had been taken etc, or half hour if more help was needed. Part of our job was to sit and chat with the client about this and that over a cuppa leaving them feeling less isolated and the day a little shorter and less tedious. By the time I retired carers were becoming coming more and more rushed, with less and less time to give the same care, the cuppa and chat non existant, everything more and more scrutinised, travel time didn't exist, petrol allowance trimmed right back. In the end I was glad to leave as care seemed to have gone out of caring and by all accounts continues to do so.

So you pay peanuts and get monkeys!

Private companies still need to factor in sick pay and pensions, etc.

Yes they do daphnedill but statistics show that public sector employees take more sick days/ time off than those in the private sector and then there is pensions etc. One of the reasons social services put the contracts out to tender in the first place .

Essex County Council is planning to spend £524 million on social care for vulnerable adults in 2016/7, paid for mainly by Council Tax. Most of this is paid via private companies.

On its web page, the council boasts that it's making £106 million in savings for 2016/7. Some of this is being stripped from the adult social care budget.

At least LAs have decent terms and conditions and some kind of quality monitoring and training. Staff aren't treated like skivvies.

Even if private companies are used, LAs are still responsible for negotiating care packages and paying for them.

CT payers pay their salaries anyway with home care companies taking their cut.

One of the problems I would foresee if LA's took the care back in house would be that these carers would then be employees of the LA and with that would come the inevitable extra burdens on CT payers.

It's one big mess I think whitewave . The carers my grandma had used bicycles to go go from client to client as there were a lot in a relatively small area. As I have said on other threads we have a higher than average elderly population on our town so no wonder our council taxes are going through the roof. Something has to give.

I don't agree that services should be provided by charitable companies. Carers must be paid. Many people provide free care to friends and relatives anyway.

LAs should take home care back in house, with flexibility to employ extra staff on a need basis. Low dependancy hospitals and units should be re-opened/built for people with temporary needs, such as recovering from an op. Cuts to district nursing provision must be reversed.

There needs to be a transparent and realistic discussion about how this can be financed.

I dread being hospitalised, because I have nobody to look after me at home - and I'm not even that old.

It was only a matter of time really. The care workers have been carrying the burden, with impossibly low wages, no payment for the drive between clients etc. Now the companies have to pay a higher minimum wage. Their profits will be squeezed, they are not all "not for profit" institutions. Perhaps it is time that LAs just employed the charitable companies providing these services. But they must have reasonable contracts the careers are not slaves.

I agree that LA home and residential care provision was good. The drive towards commissioning rather than providing services was financially led of course and inevitably, it isn't possible to provide the services and make a profit.

The way in which all public services are being destroyed makes me both sad and angry.

And carers are not provided with company cars are they? They are required to provide their own. And you'd have to ask, who pays for petrol and maintenance of those cars?
LAs have had huge financial cutbacks and most of the public have been oblivious to this. To run an LA service or home of a good quality - one which does not exploit the staff - is costly. Unions protect LA workers from exploitation, while those working for small private companies have no such protection. The trend for outsourcing to the private sector has been with the agenda of cutting costs.
But with increases to the cost of employment and restrictions on how much councils can contribute, there is an inevitable breakdown happening.

LA homes have always been better - the staff were better supported and trained. They were always my first choice when finding somewhere for an elderly person.

I have just received my council tax bill and it blows the mind how much it has gone up - there is a specific increase to cover care.

That's what I thought gillybob. There were posts about care homes, which have their own problems, but not the same as home care.

There are real problems in rural areas, because travelling time between clients can be half an hour or more. Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge has difficulties with bed blocking, because some of their patients live in the Fens and the hospital can't find home care. I expect other big regional hospitals have similar problems.

Yes, It was home care I was talking about in my OP daphnedill

Exactly GillT57 these companies are not handing back contracts because they are not making enough profit but because they are unable to even cover their costs. Let's not forget the so called living wage is more than minimum wage too which would be impossible if they are only being paid in the region of £14-15 per hour .

The main reason for returning council care contracts, or not taking them up in the first place is due to the ridiculous amounts which the councils pay. This is not necessarily the fault of the local authorities, they are expected to do more than they used to and for ever decreasing amounts of funding from central government. Minimum wages cost more than the employee is paid, and a carer being paid £7.50 an hour for example will accrue travel costs, statutory paid holidays of 5.6 weeks, employer's NIC and that is before you start into training time which cannot be charged to a client, and SSP which is no longer re-imbursed to an employer.For example: if a carer has a back injury( quite common( and is unable to work for say 6 weeks, the employer will be paying just under £90 per week SSP, plus the cost of a cover employee, all for the one chargeable rate. Suddenly £14-15 per hour billing rate starts to look ridiculous. Contrary to what many believe, there is not pots of money to be made in the caring business, and most agencies are closing down as it just doesn't make financial sense.

I read that the company in Liverpool that cancelled its social care contracts was only offered £13.10 per hour. I'm not sure how anyone could afford to provide care for these rates.

Even 10 years ago things were difficult. I ran a community care service for the LA. Staff were not allowed travelling time so officially they finished with one client at 10am and started work with the next person at 10am. If there was a traffic problem this compounded things. Staff always worked over and above their hours. The LA relied on the fact that staff were dedicated and would not leave clients without care. Having said that the LA paid a good wage and staff had all the relevant training.

I expect it will be more difficult tanith. In my area, it's very difficult to fill care vacancies. I know that most workers are paid well above the minimum wage, but it's still difficult to find people. Many of the care homes and home care agencies employ EU staff.