A year ago, my 91-year-old Ma died after a terrible weekend ina south London hospital. This is not the place to explore that horrendous last 72 hours but the aphorism “don’t go to hospital at the weekend”, such are the staff shortages, rang painfully true.
As horror stories emerge about the now annual NHS Christmas crisis, and following the Government’s changes to immigration policy that will affect healthcare workers, we should pay tribute to the most under-valued and put-upon of all people in our society: carers, most of whom will work over Christmas.
Professional carers are exempt from the cruel increase in the new minimum salary requirements for overseas workers from £26,200 to £38,700 per year. That is a small blessing. But the politically motivated decision to issue tougher visa restrictions on foreign carers bringing their own dependants to the UK makes it even less likely that these roles, already difficult to fill, will be taken up. International staff represent one in six of the NHS workforce, and 16 per cent of adult social carers. Would you live in another country away from your partner and children, working long, stressful hours for a paltry wage?
These rule changes are potentially ruinous to already over-stretched health services, which will have a disastrous domino effect on care. In 2022, there was a 165,000 shortfall in adult social care jobs in England alone. The number of posts filled was down 50,000 on the year before. Given our inexorably ageing population, it does not take a political analyst to see the irresistible force meeting an immovable object.
The domino effect throws even more onus onto unpaid family carers. Even before the pandemic, 600 people a day were leaving their jobs to take care of a family member. In west London, where I live, £2,000 a week for a carehome is not unusual. Small wonder that ever more people quit jobs to care full-time. The cost of care homes combined with an ageing population means that 15 per cent of the population are now both working and caring. Anyone who has cared for an elderly or sick relative will know how stressful and exhausting it can be.
Some 1.3 million are “sandwich carers”, looking after both children and elderly parents. They too feel overwhelmed and undervalued. Most of us are not trained to meet the complexities of some relatives’ care needs. Neither can we afford either the time off work or the largely unpaid hours even if we give up work. You can claim £76.75 a week if you care for someone for more than 35 hours a week. However, that’s only if you don’t earn over £139 a week (after deductions), among other restrictions.
What is to be done? We need visa restrictions to be eased, not tightened. There should be a joined-up new initiative behind funding both professional carers and those forced to care at home. Benefits need an urgent overhaul to better support carers in their invaluable roles. While it will be of little practical or financial help to those caring over Christmas, the least we can do is acknowledge and salute them, too.
