Quality Care - Minimum Wages

brineybay

Fiddlestick wrote: »

It isn't their job to check the medication per se, so long as SOMEONE does the legal double check be it the pharmacist or a pharmacy technician.

Nothing can legally be dispensed now unless the pharmacist is on the premises, and the buck does stop with them if any screw ups happen.

Out of interest was this an independent pharmacy (i.e. with the pharmacist's livelihood at stake) or a large multiple chain pharmacy?

You are quite right that any problems would be at the hands of the pharmacist, but still, being a dispensing assistant does require training.

This was in a small chain of pharmacies, with perhaps about 10 branches in the area. I was surprised, as I had assumed that smaller chains would care more about their staff and would provide better pay - shows what I know!

brineybay

Hi SueC, I completely understand that you also agree that carers should be better paid.

You did say: "If you were old and/or frail, would you prefer to be cared for by someone who was purely doing it for the money".

I think this is a very valid point - of course those who are caring in nature will want to be carers, but as someone else commented in this thread, a lack of pay might actually prevent those who want to care from becoming carers due to the low wages.

Personally, I would feel more comfortable being looked after by someone who was being paid £8 per hour, as opposed to someone paid £6.20 per hour, because I would expect the higher paid worker to take more interest and attention to their work.

Thanks for your input to this thread!

brineybay

Just another thought I wanted to throw out there:

Imagine someone who is unskilled and unemployed and just needs a job. They get the position of carer, paying min wage. They need the money, so they take it, but they don't have any interest in caring. A few weeks into the job and they mess something up, which ends in them losing the job. Aside from any criminal neglect or that sort of thing, the worst thing that can happen to this person is that they take another job, and get paid the min wage again.
My point is, what is the incentive for someone on min wage to do a good job?
If the carer is paid a fair amount of money, there is more incentive for them to do a good job to retain their employment. If they are paid the min wage, what does it really matter if they do a good job or not?

As something else to think about, imagine you have a very rare illness, and you have the option of seeing two specialists. You know that Doctor A earns £50k a year, Doctor B earns £160k per year. Who's opinion would you be more likely to trust?

I think what I really want to say is that level of pay should be a reflection on the responsibility of the job and its value to society. What kind of a message are we giving out by advertising positions as carers as minimum wage employment?

ILW

brineybay wrote: »

Just another thought I wanted to throw out there:

Imagine someone who is unskilled and unemployed and just needs a job. They get the position of carer, paying min wage. They need the money, so they take it, but they don't have any interest in caring. A few weeks into the job and they mess something up, which ends in them losing the job. Aside from any criminal neglect or that sort of thing, the worst thing that can happen to this person is that they take another job, and get paid the min wage again.
My point is, what is the incentive for someone on min wage to do a good job?
If the carer is paid a fair amount of money, there is more incentive for them to do a good job to retain their employment. If they are paid the min wage, what does it really matter if they do a good job or not?

As something else to think about, imagine you have a very rare illness, and you have the option of seeing two specialists. You know that Doctor A earns £50k a year, Doctor B earns £160k per year. Who's opinion would you be more likely to trust?

I think what I really want to say is that level of pay should be a reflection on the responsibility of the job and its value to society. What kind of a message are we giving out by advertising positions as carers as minimum wage employment?

I am guessing you are very young and have not figured out how the world works yet.

Where would you expect the money to come fro to pay these carers higher wages?
Problem is that many of their "clients" tend to be poor.

SueC_2

brineybay wrote: »

J
As something else to think about, imagine you have a very rare illness, and you have the option of seeing two specialists. You know that Doctor A earns £50k a year, Doctor B earns £160k per year. Who's opinion would you be more likely to trust?

Frankly I wouldn't give a flying fig how much the doctor earned. I would want to be treated by the one with the most extensive training, the most relevant experience, and the best success rates.

brineybay wrote: »

Thanks for your input to this thread!

You're welcome.

brineybay

SueC wrote: »

Frankly I wouldn't give a flying fig how much the doctor earned. I would want to be treated by the one with the most extensive training, the most relevant experience, and the best success rates.

I suppose you are right!

brineybay

ILW wrote: »

I am guessing you are very young and have not figured out how the world works yet.

Where would you expect the money to come fro to pay these carers higher wages?
Problem is that many of their "clients" tend to be poor.

Yyou are right, I am young (ish). I always thought that 'unpopular' jobs would be better paid. I'm not trying to say caring should be an unpopular job, but reading the job description for what the carer was meant to do, I thought to myself "I would never, ever want to do that".

That was why the pay surprised me so much. I wouldn't want to professionally care for elderly people even if you paid me £20 per hour, let alone £6.

Do such house-carers get tips from their clients or anything extra for their services?

I guess there must be a massive surplus of carers or something for the wages to be so low, but there are always 'carer' jobs advertised all over the place in the south. If there really are so many people who want to be carers, why are there always so many vacancies for them? - Aging population in the South perhaps?

kerrypn

brineybay wrote: »

Having done some work in the health sector, I regularly receive news about jobs in healthcare related positions in my local area (South UK).

I have recently heard about two things, which have upset me deeply and which I feel are serious problems our society faces with regard to decent health care.

The first thing is this - I have been made aware that in some pharmacies in the area, dispensing assistants (the people who's job it is to get the correct medication for each prescription and check the the drug is correct) are being paid the minimum wage.

Minimum wage for a worker aged over 21 is currently £6.08 per hour, rising to £6.19 per hour from October 2012.

Of course, prescriptions are double checked by a pharmacist (the going rate for pharmacists in the area is about £22 per hour), but it does seem unacceptable to me that someone who has gone through a lot of training to be able to correctly identify drugs in a pharmacy could be paid so poorly.

I am not suggesting that all pharmacy dispensers get paid so lowly, but I am surprised that some clearly do get paid min wage for this kind of work.

What's more, I recently saw a job advertisement for a position as a carer for elderly people. The job required, among other things, that the successful applicant would be required to feed elderly people, wash and dress elderly people and look after them in their own homes as a carer "in a respectful and dignified way".

As for me, I would never, ever want to wash and dress elderly, immobile people who cannot look after themselves. I will be old myself one day, but I would not in a million years want to wash and dress other old people who have no relation to me. I ask if you would really ever want to to this kind of work?

The advertisement listed all the excellent and caring qualities the applicant would have to have. I image one would have to have a very caring attitude to want to take such a job. So, what would our loveable carer get paid - minimum wage, of course.

Let's be serious for a moment. We all know that there are jobs in this world, even in a recession, where one does not have to do such things as wash other peoples' bodies, and you can get paid better than the very minimum our society says is acceptable.

What baffles me is this - how can anyone expect to get quality care from someone on minimum wage. More to the point, if you were an elderly, immobile person struggling to look after yourself, would you really want to be looked after by a minimum wage slave.

I, for one, would not.

I just makes me think what a screwed up society we live in, where those who look after the sick and old get paid so pitifully. Can this system be sustained?

The horrible treatment of people with disabilities at Winterbourne View, as exposed by the BBC's Panorama is incredibly shocking. But then again, when you are offering the minimum wage to look after people who need serious care, can we really be surprised at the quality of people who apply (and get offered) such work.

Sorry to bring everyone down, but I just wanted to know what other people think. Maybe I'm being too pessimistic, but it just doesn't seem right at all to me, especially when I have a friend who works in a supermarket and gets paid more than the min wage for working on a checkout.

How can we expect people on the minimum wage to look after such vulnerable people? Can this be justified?

Your thoughts, please...

Well I have worked as a care assistant for 11 years, always on the minimum wage, and I can assure you that I have always given quality person centred care and chose to work in this sector.

I think the minimum wage needs raising for everyone, and care work is either a job you can do or can't.

Why would paying someone more make them better at looking after vulnerable people?

ILW

brineybay wrote: »

Yyou are right, I am young (ish). I always thought that 'unpopular' jobs would be better paid. I'm not trying to say caring should be an unpopular job, but reading the job description for what the carer was meant to do, I thought to myself "I would never, ever want to do that".

That was why the pay surprised me so much. I wouldn't want to professionally care for elderly people even if you paid me £20 per hour, let alone £6.

Do such house-carers get tips from their clients or anything extra for their services?

I guess there must be a massive surplus of carers or something for the wages to be so low, but there are always 'carer' jobs advertised all over the place in the south. If there really are so many people who want to be carers, why are there always so many vacancies for them? - Aging population in the South perhaps?

Not sure where you got that idea from.

Care takes little in the way of experience or qualifications.
Rates are in effect set by what the government is prepared to pay.

The main union that represents the sector (Unison) is only really intersted in the public sector and most carers are now private sector.

Torry_Quine

ILW wrote: »

Not sure where you got that idea from.

Care takes little in the way of experience or qualifications.
Rates are in effect set by what the government is prepared to pay.

The main union that represents the sector (Unison) is only really intersted in the public sector and most carers are now private sector.

Good care is not as easy as you seem to think. For example training is needed to know how to move people without hurting them or yourself.