£11 for 15 minutes of Care..

[Anna B]

Just phoned a care company about help with caring at home for a young disabled person.

 

£11.00 for 15 minutes!

 

or £17 an hour (with no guarantee that he'll actually get the full hour of course,)

Is this standard?

No doubt the actual carers will be on minimum wage.

 

When my Grandmother was old in the 1970's care like this was free at the point of use, and so were care homes. What happened? Don't tell me there are more old people now, there's also a lot more people paying taxes, and we're supposed to be a rich nation.

Anyway, he's a young person for a start, and his benefits won't stretch to this.

[RJRB]

To be honest £17 per hour sounds reasonable to me.

With the fixed costs of transport and time they are not going to quote a quarter of this for 15 minutes.

 

P.S I do agree with you that we seem to be going backwards as far as social benefits are concerned.

[geared]

This is care at home or care at an establishment somewhere??

 

If you're paying someone to come to you and provide care, then even £17 is fairly cheap.

[tinfoilhat]

Just phoned a care company about help with caring at home for a young disabled person.

 

£11.00 for 15 minutes!

 

or £17 an hour (with no guarantee that he'll actually get the full hour of course,)

Is this standard?

No doubt the actual carers will be on minimum wage.

 

When my Grandmother was old in the 1970's care like this was free at the point of use, and so were care homes. What happened? Don't tell me there are more old people now, there's also a lot more people paying taxes, and we're supposed to be a rich nation.

Anyway, he's a young person for a start, and his benefits won't stretch to this.

 

There's millions more old people now than back then. Literally millions. And they form a bigger percentage of the population too.

[DC89216]

Which care company was this? My life partner works for one and those are basically the same rates.

 

The care workers themselves get equally as shafted wage wise. Horrible for them.

[Robin-H]

Just phoned a care company about help with caring at home for a young disabled person.

 

£11.00 for 15 minutes!

 

or £17 an hour (with no guarantee that he'll actually get the full hour of course,)

Is this standard?

No doubt the actual carers will be on minimum wage.

 

When my Grandmother was old in the 1970's care like this was free at the point of use, and so were care homes. What happened? Don't tell me there are more old people now, there's also a lot more people paying taxes, and we're supposed to be a rich nation.

Anyway, he's a young person for a start, and his benefits won't stretch to this.

 

Whilst the number of tax payers has increased, the number of old people has increased significantly more than this, and so they have not offset each other.

 

I'm not sure of the figures as far back as the 70s, but in 1990-91 there were 26,100,000 income tax payers. As of 2017-18, there were 30,300,000, which is an increase of 16%.

 

The number of people aged over 65 in the UK has increased by about 31% over the same period.

 

Another point which illustrates this is the percent of the UK GDP that is spent on pensions. In the 1970s, it was less than 4% - it is now about 8%.

 

https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/27451/economics/uk-pension-spending-of-gdp/

 

That unfortunately means that tax revenue is having to be spread more thinly.

[Anna B]

This is care at home or care at an establishment somewhere??

 

If you're paying someone to come to you and provide care, then even £17 is fairly cheap.

 

This is care in their own home.

 

It's for a 38 year old, not an old person - he understandably doesn't want to go into a home although he is struggling to care for himself, but he has a serious long term medical illness so I would have thought, seeing as NHS is supposed to be 'free at the point of use' he might qualify for help. If he was in hospital he would.

 

Fact remains he cannot afford the care he needs. It would come to more than his benefits.

[Robin-H]

This is care in their own home.

 

It's for a 38 year old, not an old person - he understandably doesn't want to go into a home although he is struggling to care for himself, but he has a serious long term medical illness so I would have thought, seeing as NHS is supposed to be 'free at the point of use' he might qualify for help. If he was in hospital he would.

 

Fact remains he cannot afford the care he needs. It would come to more than his benefits.

 

Has he been assessed as being eligible for home care by the local authority?

[cgksheff]

If you run a business you would calculate what it really costs to employ someone on minimum wage.

After including a fair share of admin costs, insurance, NI etc. you won't be far off £17 per hour.

The greater the number of employees, the lower the proportional share of overheads, but they are not making a killing.

 

They may make more of a killing by ripping off staff by not paying travel time etc.

[Obelix]

Just phoned a care company about help with caring at home for a young disabled person.

 

£11.00 for 15 minutes!

 

or £17 an hour (with no guarantee that he'll actually get the full hour of course,)

Is this standard?

No doubt the actual carers will be on minimum wage.

 

When my Grandmother was old in the 1970's care like this was free at the point of use, and so were care homes. What happened? Don't tell me there are more old people now, there's also a lot more people paying taxes, and we're supposed to be a rich nation.

Anyway, he's a young person for a start, and his benefits won't stretch to this.

 

Why does this come as a surprise? IF you are paying the carers a reasonable wage, that's £9 or so for an hour. Add on employers NI, overheads to actually run the business, pension, uniforms, backoffice costs - it doesnt sound unreasonable.

 

As for more old people - yes there are. A lot more than there are taxpayers to fund them.

 

However if he's not reached retirement age then presumably he can apply for PIP or whatever it's called this week and access funds that way?

Edited March 5, 2018 by Obelix