Fears over threat to carers from migrant worker rules

Liberal Democrats have called on the Government to review how care workers are treated by the points-based immigration system. The call was made in a wide-ranging parliamentary debate on care homes obtained by Lib Dem MP Richard Younger-Ross.

Richard explained that skilled and experienced care workers, who the Government acknowledge there is a shortage of, are being prevented from taking up jobs in the UK, not for reasons related to their skill levels, but because the level of pay in the industry is so low it falls below a government threshold used for determining whether they fit the technical definition of skilled workers.

He asked the Minister "to come to south Devon to visit the care homes in my constituency, to look at the bonding between care workers and residents, and then to go back to the Home Office and ask the immigration officials whether it is really right, for the sake of the figures, to send those care workers home because care homes will not be able to pay them £8.80 [an hour], and his colleagues in the Treasury will not provide the funding."

He said the Minister should "think about the family who have grown reliant on and developed friendships with care workers, to look them in the eye and say, "Terribly sorry," and then tell them that the person whom their mother or father has grown to depend on and with whom they have developed a relationship, the person who engages with their mother or father every day, who speaks to them and encourages them so that they are not left to rot - the worst that we could do for people with dementia - or left on the shelf but can have a reasonable quality of life, will be sent back to the Philippines, China or wherever. I ask the Minister to visit the care homes, speak to the people and then tell the Treasury and the Home Office that that is not good enough."

Richard's call was endorsed by the party's spokesman, Greg Mulholland, in his speech later in the debate. While acknowledging that the points-based immigration system is a sensible way of dealing with immigration and the skill needs of this country, he asked whether there was "a way to recategorise senior care workers in particular, so that they can work in care homes and plug the gap?" That would, he said, be a big step forward.

Issues around the funding of care homes, and pay of care home employees, dominated the 90 minute Westminster Hall debate. Richard recalled that one of his earliest questions after being elected to Parliament in 2001 was about a statement from the directors of the 15 social services departments in the south-west region, that the budget constraints on them were such "that their obligatory, legal duty to provide services for children meant that they were having to divert funding from elderly care to child care. That led to a lack of funding." The estimate at the time had been of £1 billion of underfunding. Although this shortfall had been roughly halved since then, that still left a big hole, and people were consequently still not getting the level of care that they deserve.

Richard noted a major report published on the day of the debate, which had highlighted that thousands of older people with dementia are living in care homes where the staff have no training in how to deal with the condition. The Government had said that their national dementia strategy would improve the quality of care in care homes, but Richard made the point that, "unless funding follows, the strategy is not worth the paper it is written on."

Another speaker in the debate was Paul Burstow. Among other issues Paul said he was concerned how few visits GPs pay to care homes, particularly given the risk of care home residents becoming the victims of inappropriate use of drugs. On a more optimistic note, Paul referred to the changed expectations that have come with the maturing of the baby boomers, "not just because they are beginning to contemplate their need for care, but because their parents are experiencing care now. Many baby boomers find it hard to accept the limited choices with which their parents have been presented."

In an intervention, Mark Williams highlighted the lack of elderly mentally infirm nursing places across much of rural Britain, and about the spectacle of families and relatives having to travel vast distances to visit relatives who suffer from Alzheimer's.

In his wind-up speech, as well as addressing the question of migrant workers, Greg Mulholland drew attention to a freedom of information request the previous week which had revealed that 169 care homes in England had recorded major failures in unannounced inspections - 28 of them on more than one occasion. Inspectors had found residents forced to wear coats because the homes were so cold. The research had found that follow-ups were not necessarily happening. Greg said there was a need for the new Care Quality Commission, which comes into being on April 1st, to make some positive changes.