Home care worker, poor pay and conditions

Netheonejust picured my next tax return in your figures and am already seeing red. We need to empower ourselves, How about setting up our VERY OWN UK/county website so that we can be counted? I don't think there are only a few thousand of us. We can still stay anonymous, of course. But the more we are in one place, the easier to be spotted and achieve "news/TV/media value. We can flood wih emails trade unions, MPs, CQC, Age Concern, Help the Aged who seems genuine about elderly care but still refuse to accept that the person behind the cared for is the care worker. I do not mean occasional e-mails, I mean tons of them.
Demand that we are are classified as home/domiciliary carers. One of the means to hide our existence and exploitation is to "loose" us in the Health and Social/residential/nursing care sector.
-Join a union. I like that my membership fee is based on my earnings and thus affordable, but still I feel that not even the unions are giving us the distinction we need. However, when it gets nasty, they can help us.
Record in the daily report when late and why, when client complains etc. AND quote Rights to dignity, respect etc. These records are legal documents and evidence. Council cut to 15 minutes a call to a client. Not been reassessed by SS for 2 years, social worker did not know client was bed-ridden!When the commode is needed, end of 15 minutes. It takes me double to clean, change pads, serve tea but lucky if I get 15 minutes paid. Well, I specified in the record that in order to respect the right to privacy,dignity and choice of client as per council and company's guidelines and Carers' Code of Practice, the call was longer than the allotted time. No senior has got back to me yet, although they have seen the record.

cont-: £3000 approx spent on fuel last year, £400 approx mileage allowance £1960 approx reimbursement of expenses...the outstanding amount is what I have had to pay for myself to visit the company's clients from my wages. If I was to work in a shop I would not have to pay towards stock, If I worked at a surgery I would not have to pay towards the clients prescription, if I was to work in a nursing home I would not have to pay towards the clients rent, So why then should I have to pay my company to visit their clients. My reimbursement of expenses is added onto my wages on my p60 (not taxed I might add) so to top it all I had my working tax credit taken off me as my p60 tells them I earned £1960 extra ???????? and also I can't get a mortgage because of the job I do, so much for KEY WORKERS. Were is the incentive to go to work, I'm better off on job seekers allowance. I also have an issue with the all company's policy's itself, which pays me a little bit more per mile to visit private patients than it does to visit social service clients.  My vehicle does not understand the difference and it will consume the same amount of fuel irrespective of who in paying the bill.  
Many care company's benefit from the good will of cares to do the job. To which we all do. This is abuse on be half of the company's that will not paid a fair wage for a fair days work. I have now joined the union as I got a 'get stuffed' from my company for asking for a rise in fuel.

We are the only work force that are allowed to work legally for less than the minimum wage. We pay the government through tax and NI towards care. They in turn pay us and turn a blind eye and then denies it doesn't happened or find excuses as to why we should work for less than the minimum wage . I work 55 hours a week but only get paid for 32.
It has been about 8 years since the company I work for (NESTOR 30 MILLION BEFORE TAX PROFIT FOR ONE YEAR) introduced its current mileage allowance.  8 years ago the average cost of a litre of unleaded petrol was £0.699 (data obtained from http://www.speedlimit.org.uk/petrolprices.html).  Today in 2010 the average cost of a litre of unleaded petrol where I live is £1.16 (data obtained from http://www.petrolprices.com/).  This means that the cost of fuel has increased by about 62% since they introduced the current fuel allowance policy.  We have not had a rise in the cost of fuel for 8 years!!!!!!!!!! We are paid 18 pence a mile and has been this way for 9 years.
cont-:

All I can say is I agree 100% with every comment these people are saying on here, I myself am a male carer in home care being in the job for 4 yrs now and love it, never yet found a company in this line of work that repects the carer or even the client, cqc an government have regulations in place for social care, where as care companies of various discriptions would rather spend their money on employing solicitors on finding the loop holes in these regulations of how they can get away with things an run just on the border lines of these regulations with out getting into trouble, instead of running a secure company that benefits the carers an more so the clients an still make a profit.
The Government needs to revalue the regulations in social care, cut the loop holes out, and make sure all the monies and free tax allowances that these companies get is used for what it was intended for, the whole system is in a mess an needs fixing, that way the clients will get the service they are entitled to instead of what they are getting now, and the carers get the help an support that they are entitled to for the very demanding and stressful job that they cheerfully do everyday to the best of their ability.

Continued--Companies that are part of a franchise or with limited hours (which could well be the one in the article) would never be able to afford mileage allowance to staff. This is because pay rates from councils are so low. The fact is that most agencies pay home care workers over half the amount of money paid to them from the council which is supposed to cover all costs including office staff wages, business premises, internet access, changing standards to paperwork and policies, franchise fees if applicable and the list goes on and on. Also agencies are forced to pay an ongoing percentage of their income (not gross profit) for the electronic method of payment/booking of visits earlier noted (which is far more complex and open to errors than time sheets etc) even though it has already cost them more in computer hardware, internet usage allowance and technical support. This was introduced due to the government applying pressure to councils who are in the red every year due to lack of funding. Ironic.

Having worked heavily in the home care sector I can say that there are some very good agencies and a lot of sub par ones as well. This is a management and company specific problem and should not be addressed to hard working agencies. Electronic bookings/payment have not been introduced by agencies but by councils. This was supposed to stop things such as fraud/claiming for visits which care workers/agencies did not go to but quickly it became apparent it was a cost cutting scheme which I will explain later. Some councils that are losing money will not pay for “Extra Time”. Also when a care worker accidentally does not stay long enough for a visit (some councils work to the second, others work on time bandings) the agency does not get paid the full amount for the visit so this system suites them perfectly. Unfortunately this means the agency has to pass this cost on to the care worker otherwise they would in-fact run at a loss. When an agency offers mileage allowances they either pay less per hour for visits or have a huge amount of contracts to afford it, they are few and far between (and very lucky/worked very hard to get to that position). Continued next comment.

I set up a Home Care Agency in Gloucestershire in 2004 and am always shocked when I read comments like these. Not all employers are the same! Ask around and find a decent company to work for. In the meantime contact the Care Quality Commission and let them know what is really going on (www.cqc.org.uk). We pay travel time and 40p mileage. By staying with the bad emplyers you are propping up the system. Find a good employer and stick with them. If need be get on a waiting list to join them!

Not only are home care workers badly paid but the Council is now trying to cut pay and conditions to the minimum,reducing petrol claims when petrol is going sky high,home care workers may as well pay for the priverlage of doing the job as we spend so much of our time and money d

I am in exactly the same situation, I think it is an absolute disgrace that an employer should expect us to work like this. The clients are deffinately not being cared for properly, almost to the point of being abused in my opinion and if you say anything to the management nothing is done about it. Also some carers pretend to do the job when really things are left for the next carer who goes in and has to do what they have left plus their own work. This in turn makes you run late and the cycle carries on all day. Can no one with any kind of authority open their eyes and see what is going on out there? NO....because it's all down to making money and if people suffer, they don't care. My health has deteriorated through doing too much work in too little time, I can't take much more and I am off sick now through it. Who cares? no one!!

To the person with the parking problem. I can tell by how you worded your gripe that you are as thick as they come. I won't explain. Just read it, (if you can read). If not, get someone to read it back to you. Then think... Ahhhh yes.. indeed I am, really, really stupid..

I am a low paid courier working 55 hours plus per week for minimum wage. My wife, however, has just returned to care work (something she loves) and I often find she is working the same hours as me but only being paid for half. I honestly believed I was hard done to, but my wife (and many more besides) are seriously having the P*!$ taken out of them. As far as I am concerned, if she is out of the house for eleven hours, she should be paid eleven hours, less the hour dinner break. In response to your brilliant weekly gripe letter, I would like to say "yes" i'm angry. Surley there is a law against this dispicable behaviour. It truly is a disgrace.

I was working for a Home Care agency in Bristol until February this year. I couldn't agree more with the comments on this page. I was with the agency for almost a year and they were so incredibly incompetent it was beyond belief. Double booking clients, missed calls and constant harrasment, begging you - and at times threatening you, that if you couldn't help them out covering this 'emergency' then it would be doubtful if they would be able to find work for you next week!....
I once had a phonecall at 6.30am in the morning one Saturday from one of the co-ordinators asking why I wasn't at the agreed meeting place to meet another carer for the morning double up rounds. I then proceeded to tell her that as no one had called me to ask me if I was available to work the weekend, I assumed that they had the rota covered. It turned out that my name was written on the board on Wednesday, but no one from the office called to ask me if I could work! I was obviously expected to have a sixth sense and know exactly who I was supposed to be meeting and where. I had made no provision for anyone to look after my son, so I just couldn't go to work. The office were unable to find anyone else to help with the round and the Care Assistant agreed to work a round which MUST take two carers on her own, using the hoists when the office said they were prepared to pay her double time! It's an absoultue disgrace. No regard for the well being and safety of the clients. Bullying and harasment of staff, poor wages, overwork...the list goes on and on. I was so demoralized and depressed by the conditions and although I loved working with the clients and got real satisfaction in trying to make their day a little brighter, I just couldn't take the stress anymore. Something needs to be done fast about these agencies, they are just out for themselves and a money making racket!