Care news

• Record number of men in care work in England as immigration eases jobs crisis

  10-10-2024 07:00
  
  Sector has hired 185,000 foreign recruits in last two years, figures show, more than offsetting drop in British workersOne in five care workers in England are now men, the highest level on record, according to new figures showing immigration is reducing the social care staffing crisis.Care work traditionally has been female-dominated but men now make up 21% of the workforce in England, the first time they have represented more than a fifth of care workers since records began. Continue reading...
  
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• Large parts of adult social care market in England face collapse, thinktank warns

  21-11-2024 18:43
  
  Sector will have extra £2.8bn cost burden from April due to tax and wage rises announced in budget, says Nuffield TrustLarge parts of England’s adult social care market face collapse as a result of tax and wage rises announced in the budget, with devastating consequences for vulnerable and older people who rely on care services, a leading thinktank has warned.The Nuffield Trust said that while the government has consistently spoken of its long term ambition to reform the social care
  
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• When social care is put in private hands | Letters

  21-11-2024 17:59
  
  John Burton on the overhaul of children’s social care, and Janet Maitland on how chronic underfunding has tainted assessments of people’s needsAs someone who has worked in children’s homes since the 1960s and who is part of a community of people who have experience of generally good children’s homes, I don’t expect the government’s proposed reforms will have the desired effect (Overhaul of children’s social care in England will crack down on firms’
  
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• Public’s understanding of paedophiles has not improved, says charity boss

  19-11-2024 16:00
  
  Rev Harry Nigh, who set up Circles in 1994 to support sex offenders, says it is easy for politicians to say ‘lock them up’Public understanding of paedophiles has not improved over the past 30 years, according to the founder of the pioneering charity Circles, which offers support to some of society’s most reviled offenders.While the Rev Harry Nigh says child protection must always be paramount, he stresses the importance of breaking the isolation and shame that often leads peopl
  
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• Keir Starmer says he wants ‘serious and pragmatic’ relationship with China – as it happened

  18-11-2024 20:14
  
  Prime minister says he wants to ‘be clear about issues we do not agree on’ after meeting Chinese president Xi Jinping at G20Keir Starmer has held his bilateral with Xi Jinping in Rio at the G20, offering to meet his counterpart, the Chinese premier Li Qiang, in Beijing or London at the earliest opportunity.But the PM also raised human rights issues with Xi, including the sanctions on parliamentarians and the persecution of Hong Kong and British citizen Jimmy Lai.A strong UK China rel
  
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• The Guardian view on children’s homes: cap profits and don’t stop there | Editorial

  18-11-2024 20:05
  Private sector reform is overdue, but councils need funding if young people are to have the chances they deserveCurbs on profiteering in the children’s social care sector cannot come soon enough. It is getting on for three years since the Competition and Markets Authority found that children’s home owners in England, Scotland and Wales were making excessive profits while carrying too much debt – exposing children and councils to unacceptable risks. Of all the failed experiments
  
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• Keir Starmer says he wants ‘serious and pragmatic’ relationship with China – UK politics live

  18-11-2024 20:00
  
  Prime minister says he wants to ‘be clear about issues we do not agree on’ after meeting Chinese president Xi Jinping at G20Keir Starmer has held his bilateral with Xi Jinping in Rio at the G20, offering to meet his counterpart, the Chinese premier Li Qiang, in Beijing or London at the earliest opportunity.But the PM also raised human rights issues with Xi, including the sanctions on parliamentarians and the persecution of Hong Kong and British citizen Jimmy Lai.A strong UK China rel
  
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• Overhaul of children’s social care in England will crack down on firms’ profiteering

  18-11-2024 01:01
  
  Government says wide-ranging reforms will end ‘neglect’ in system that leaves young people behindLabour ready to show it is serious about changing children’s social careExcessive profiteering by unscrupulous private companies charging sky-high fees for substandard placements for vulnerable children will be clamped down on as part of a major overhaul of children’s social care in England.The government will on Monday outline a wide-ranging package of changes, which it promi
  
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• Labour ready to show it is serious about child social care reform

  18-11-2024 01:01
  Details are still lacking, but initial suggestion is that many of the MacAlister report’s findings will be enactedTwo years ago a government-commissioned report laid bare the crisis affecting children’s social care in England and called for an urgent multibillion-pound overhaul to reform a system that it said was spiralling out of control.The author of the report, Josh MacAlister, warned that a continued failure to tackle major problems in children’s services would lead to reco
  
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• ‘I’m not saying I’m not scarred. But scars do fade’: Baroness Lola Young on her childhood in care

  17-11-2024 12:00
  The crossbench peer grew up in care and went on to become an actor, an academic and one of the first black women in the House of Lords. Now she has written a memoir documenting her remarkable storyIn March 2012, Lola Young, who sits as a crossbench peer in the House of Lords, clambered on to the rush-hour bus that would take her from the children’s social care office in Islington, north London, to her home. In her arms was a box: a collection of papers she was so anxious to open she did it
  
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• Improving social care is a big task and these talks are a good place to start | Heather Stewart

  17-11-2024 11:36
  Productivity and quality in a sector that is its workforce will require even more money after national insurance risesKemi Badenoch’s second go at prime minister’s questions last Wednesday was judged a flop at Westminster but she did draw attention to one genuine issue: the impact of the national insurance rise for social care.It is 14 years since the Tories sank Andy Burnham’s plan for a “death tax” to fund social care. Over that time, as demand has continued to ri
  
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• Cover-up of child abuse in Church of England tried to ‘protect the work’ of twisted theology | Helen King

  17-11-2024 11:00
  It’s difficult to face the fact that those who call themselves Christian can abuse, and hard to believe anyone thought silence was the right responseIt has been an unprecedented 10 days for the Church of England. The Makin report into abuse by John Smyth, barrister and Church lay reader, was leaked and landed a week ahead of its scheduled date, but still more than four years behind the original timetable.Much of the content is familiar to anyone who read Andrew Graystone’s 2021 book
  
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• Fears grow over UK children at risk placed in illegal care homes

  16-11-2024 20:00
  Rising number of vulnerable youngsters are being forced into unsuitable accommodation including Airbnbs, bedsits and caravansA shocking increase in the number of vulnerable children deprived of their liberty by the state is leaving more youngsters in illegal accommodation, at eye-watering costs to the taxpayer, a government-backed assessment has warned.The children include a young woman who was physically sat on for an entire day by staff trying to restrain her and a severely disabled child whos
  
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• Fears grow over children at risk placed in illegal care homes

  16-11-2024 20:00
  
  Rising number of vulnerable youngsters in England are being forced into unsuitable accommodation including Airbnbs, bedsits and caravansA shocking increase in the number of vulnerable children deprived of their liberty by the state is leaving more youngsters in illegal accommodation, at eye-watering costs to the taxpayer, a government-backed assessment has warned.The children include a young woman who was physically sat on for an entire day by staff trying to restrain her and a severely disabled
  
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• UK’s unhealthy food habits cost £268bn a year, report finds

  15-11-2024 20:24
  
  Exclusive: Food, Farming and Countryside Commission added up cost to NHS and economy of diet-linked diseaseThe UK’s growing addiction to unhealthy food costs £268bn a year, far outstripping the budget for the whole NHS, the first research into the subject has found.The increased consumption of foods high in fat, salt and sugar or which have been highly processed is having a “devastating” impact on human health and Britain’s finances.The market in ultra-processed foo
  
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• Killing Time by Alan Bennett review – a cut above

  13-11-2024 10:00
  
  From afternoon sherry to sex with the handyman in the lawnmower shed, Alan Bennett takes a wry look at lockdown life in a care homeBack in 2020, with the country in lockdown, the BBC commissioned updated versions of Alan Bennett’s consummate Talking Heads, originally broadcast in 1988. Ten of the 12 monologues were remade with a new A-list of British actors that included Kristin Scott Thomas, Lesley Manville and Martin Freeman reprising roles played first time around by Eileen Atkins, Magg
  
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• Rise in NICs will endanger public health services | Letter

  12-11-2024 17:22
  
  While the NHS has been given an exemption to the NIC increase, health services commissioned outside the health service have not, says Greg FellYour article outlining the extra strain on council budgets that the rise in employers’ national insurance contributions (NICs) will cause highlighted the likely impact on adult and children’s social care services (Adult social care in England needs urgent help from ministers, say bosses, theguardian.com, 6 November).There will also be a s
  
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• Licences granted to nearly 200 UK care providers despite labour law violations

  12-11-2024 06:00
  
  Exclusive: Study finds evidence of major gaps in government oversight of foreign workers in care sectorNearly 200 care providers have been given government licences to bring foreign nurses to the UK despite having previously violated labour laws, according to a study that highlights widespread employment problems in the social care sector.The report by the Work Rights Centre shows 177 companies in England have been given licences to sponsor carers, even while publicly available information shows
  
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• Bishop calls for Justin Welby to resign over failure to pursue serial abuser

  11-11-2024 14:54
  
  Helen-Ann Hartley says archbishop’s position is untenable as members of Church of England’s ruling body launch petitionA Church of England bishop has added her voice to growing calls for the archbishop of Canterbury to resign over his failure to pursue a sadistic abuser of children when allegations were brought to his attention.Helen-Ann Hartley, the bishop of Newcastle, said Justin Welby’s position was untenable and he should quit. A line needed to be drawn, she added. Continu
  
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• Government expected to help UK hospices hit by national insurance rise

  10-11-2024 19:00
  
  Financial lifeline could alleviate fears end-of-life services are at risk of closure from tax hike and higher wage billsThe government is likely to offer a financial lifeline to the hospice sector amid fears end-of-life care providers are at risk of closure due to the double blow of the employers’ national insurance rise and higher wage bills, the Guardian understands.Officials have been looking at the options for providing more funding to hospices and other end-of-life care through the NH
  
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• Children taken away from parents due to misreporting of drug tests, say experts

  09-11-2024 15:00
  
  Process for interpreting hair-strand tests can be misleading and carries a risk of racial bias, according to campaigners in England and WalesChildren are at risk of being wrongly removed from their parents’ care by the family courts because drug tests are being misinterpreted, experts have warned.Life-changing decisions about whether a child should be placed in the care of a local authority can sometimes hinge on the outcome of hair-strand tests, designed to show whether a parent has consu
  
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• UK government could miss chance to protect children, says ex-inquiry chair

  08-11-2024 07:00
  
  Alexis Jay says she is still pressing ministers to introduce mandatory reporting of allegations in England and WalesA “once-in-a-lifetime” chance to protect children is at risk of being squandered by the UK government, a leading expert has warned.Prof Alexis Jay, the former chair of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) said she was still pressing Labour ministers for a commitment to introduce her recommendations made at the conclusion of the seven-year inquiry in 2
  
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• Adult social care in England needs urgent help from ministers, say bosses

  06-11-2024 06:00
  Rising costs and demand are a huge strain on council budgets and services face ‘intolerable pressures’, says AdassEngland’s overstretched and creaking adult social care services need urgent government intervention to stabilise them financially as rising costs and demand play havoc with council budgets, care bosses have warned.The financial challenge facing adult social care continued to be “as bad as it has been in recent history”, the Association of Directors of Ad
  
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• Aged care homes star rating system needs transparency overhaul, ombudsman says

  06-11-2024 00:00
  
  Sue, who lost her husband to Parkinson’s disease and dementia, says the rating system left her ‘angry, utterly powerless and disenfranchised’Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet ourbreaking news email,free app ordaily news podcastFamilies who feel misled by the federal government’s star rating system for aged care homes have welcomed the commonwealth ombudsman’s call for it to be overhauled.The rating scheme was introduced to help families make
  
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• One Mother review – poignant memoir grapples with trauma of foster care

  05-11-2024 08:00
  
  Mickaël Bandela’s documentary reflects on the events that left him in care as a child, and the generational losses that came beforeWhen he was a few months old, film-maker Mickaël Bandela was put into the care of his foster mother Marie-Thérèse, after his own home was deemed unsuitable for the wellbeing of a small child. Throughout the next decades, his birth mother Gisèle remained a loving presence in his life. At the same time, the erratic infrequency of he
  
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• Union launches charter to protect care workers on sponsored UK visas

  04-11-2024 15:21
  
  Salford council is first signatory to Unison agreement intended to prevent exploitation of migrant workers Care workers from countries such as India, Nigeria and the Philippines who faced losing their immigration status in the UK if they left their employers have been promised new protections by a landmark, grassroots deal.The migrant care workers charter is an agreement designed by care workers and the trade union Unison to prevent the exploitation of people on sponsored visas – and Salfo
  
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• Killing Time by Alan Bennett review – senior moments full of wit and style

  04-11-2024 08:00
  
  The author employs his pitch-perfect repertoire of satirical skills in his first book for five years – a novella about the residents of an upmarket care home during the pandemicAlan Bennett, now 90, hasn’t published anything original in book form for five years. In the meantime – the Covid years and the Johnson years and the Truss month – readers have had to be content with the peerless annual diaries he writes for the London Review of Books, yearly proof that his special
  
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• Push to count ‘sleepovers’ as breaks could lead to 28-hour shifts for Australian care workers, unions warn

  03-11-2024 15:00
  
  Fair Work Commission to hear case brought by business group asking for change to safety net for care industriesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastA business push to count “sleepovers” as breaks in care industries could result in “nightmare” 28-hour shifts without penalty rates, unions have warned.This week the Fair Work Commission will hear a case brought by the Australian Industry Group asking it to change the safety net for care industries to cla
  
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• A decade ago, my father suffered alone and in misery. Why do dementia sufferers still face the same fate? | Nicci Gerrard

  03-11-2024 08:30
  
  Launched in the Observer, John’s Campaign aims to give frail people the right to be accompanied by those who love themEveryone has their own special way of grieving. Mine turned my life upside down.On 26 November 2014, two days after the funeral of my father, I sent a slightly unhinged email to the Observer saying there was a piece “I want (need) to write… My very lovely and beloved father died two weeks ago, after a long and distressing time suffering from dementia. He had be
  
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• Services for most-vulnerable people at risk after NICs rise, charities say

  01-11-2024 19:39
  
  Care providers, GPs and pharmacists warn increased costs will cause cuts and job lossesServices that support some of England’s most vulnerable people have warned that tax increases in the budget will lead to cuts and closures that could devastate the charity sector.Although the NHS and councils are protected from the impact of the rise in employers’ national insurance contributions (NICs) announced in Wednesday’s budget, charities that provide services say the increase means th
  
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