Crisis?

Today the national living wage rises to £7.83 (if you are over 25.) If you are aged 18-20 the minimum wage applies and that's set at £5.90. Apprentices and under 16's can be paid less. These figures can be checked out on the government's information site

I'm just looking at an advert for a nursery nurse. The pay is £7,280 per annum for full time hours. It's relatively common for nursery nurses' and carers' wages to fall below the national living wage. Many under 18's do not earn the minimum wage. Some workers are not paid when they are sick as they are contracted on an hourly rate. Carers may well be required to own and run a car in order to do their job.

There is a crisis brewing. The U.K. does not have enough workers who will work for the wages offered to care for our children, elderly, and emotionally and physically vulnerable. We are seeing a rapid fall (proportional to the growth of the elderly population) in the number of people who are willing to care under the conditions created by successive government policies. These sectors are groaning under the weight of top down supervision, constant change and heavy handed policy-making.

Those who teach and care for our most precious loved ones - our youngest children and our elderly parents - provide the basic 'oil in the engine' that allows society to function. This 'oil' is the ability of ordinary people to go about their business every day knowing that their family will be cared for and taught at affordable cost by well-motivated, competent, compassionate people.

As a country we are moving to a situation where there will be a crisis of recruitment. What seems to be missing is any consistent, research-based attempt to listen to the voices of the practitioners as well as the policy makers. What research has been done to find out what carers see as priorities for their charges and for themselves as workers? What motivates someone to go into these roles and dedicate themselves to the initial and continual training required? OFSTED and the CQC ought to be commissioning research and taking a good hard look at the results to ensure that measurement systems and inspections are based on a sound understanding of the basic needs of both clients and workers. Only with the buy-in and wisdom of the carers themselves can we ensure our children, disabled and elderly are supported in the best possible quality of life. The problem with setting standards that are not shaped by those delivering the care and the teaching is that the workforce gradually becomes disillusioned, disempowered and de-motivated and it becomes increasingly difficult to attract new people into the sector and retain them after training.

But I believe there's a deeper problem. And that lies in the prevailing attitude toward any 'industry' that does not generate profit. As a society we seem to have lost the notion of vocation - the idea that we are all called to set aside sufficient resources for the care of our children, our ill, our disabled and our elderly. We ought to be doing this as a proportion of the GNP and we ought to be doing it individually in families and locally through the giving of time and voluntary support. 'Called' is perhaps a word with religious overtones to which some might object. However I think it's the right word in this context and it arises from our common humanity. The human condition is such that where there is need, we notice and respond; where this need is among our own, we cannot be unknowing. It is the the mark of the humanity of any functional social grouping that, out of its wealth, it sets aside enough for its most vulnerable members.

Historically 'care' has been the job of the family and often the women in the family. It is no great surprise that one of our lowest paid sectors arises from a trajectory of 'women's work'. The role of women in caring has transferred from the family to the churches to the social services and health care agencies without any rigorous evaluation of the skill or value intrinsic of its worth. As a society we simultaneously hold contradictory beliefs about care. On the one hand it's something anyone can do - don't parents do it all the time for their children? No special training necessary! On the other hand it's something about which lots of people say 'I couldn't do that for all the tea in China.' Too much patience needed, too many menial tasks involved! Put the two attitudes together and you have a profession that is not thought of as requiring much skill or training and where most people do not wish to think about its reality in too much detail. So the myth that there is a plentiful supply of 'angels' who will do this sort of work is perpetuated.

Perhaps as the living wage increases you might spend a moment or two thinking about how you do or could live on or below the living wage. And maybe think about jobs that are often slightly better paid - waiters, bar staff, checkout staff, cleaners, delivery personnel for example - and wonder why it is we value some of those who take on the responsibility of caring for our family members so little.