The Ticking Time Bomb Within the Care Industry

Ticking Time Bomb, Sword of Damocles, call it what you will, but there is a looming crisis that threatens to obliterate swathes of the care sector.

What is this crisis you may ask? It's the enforcement of six years back pay to sleep workers. Forcing employers to pay the difference between what they were paid (an overnight retainer) and what the government say they should be paid (a full shift at minimum wage) for all their sleep shift employees for the past six years. For a care company who could have several sleep shift employees, that's a big bill that's suddenly been thrust on them.

This is no idle threat, the financial burden will cripple a large part of the care sector and homes will close because of this.

A lot of care companies are paid only minimal sums and they are struggling to cope with the burden of regulation, training and the minumum wage. Profits have been squeezed and investment is none-existent. Those companies that do things properly are the ones worst hit because they struggle to make a profit.

I did say when the minimum wage came out that it would hit the care sector hard. My wife was working alternate awake and sleep night shifts. The arrangement was she was paid the standard hourly rate while she worked, so from 8-10pm and from 6-8am she was paid hourly rate. Between those hours she was paid a fixed retainer, not the hourly rate because she was sleeping and not working. IF she was woken to deal with a client, then she would be paid hourly rate for the time she was awake and working.

But in comes the minimum wage, with no differentiation in the legislation as to whether the employee is working or not working while on the premises. No differentiation, a sledgehammer that says the employee is on the premises so even though they are tucked up in bed they are to be classed the same as the person on the awake shift doing the cleaning, washing, ironing etc.

As you can imagine, the ruling that minimum wage be paid regardless of whether the employee is working or sleeping went down like a lead balloon in most care establishments. So now most have moved to having two awake staff on shift. No longer can students earn easy money while they sleep in care homes.

Most care homes have a minumum staffing level. It may mean they have to have a minimum of two staff available. The sleep shift was a cheaper way to ensure two staff at the home while the residents slept and there wasn't the workload for two staff. Now two awake staff have to be on shift, for a shift that doesn't really need two staff on it.

I could say that the more unscrupulous care homes will just downsize to one awake staff overnight, raising the risk level and breaking the rules. It'll take a tragedy like a fire at a care home with a single member of staff struggling to evacuate residents to highlight the issue.

Of course care costs will increase because of this and local authorities, supposedly cash strapped as they are will not pay. There will be care homes and businesses that become insolvent because of this.

In the end who wins and who loses?

Certainly the residents of the homes that rely on the care lose out because they lose their homes.

But I'm struggling to find out who wins in this scenario.....

Brexit: No Deal is a Done Deal...

The stars are aligning, the rumours are starting and in what were smoke-filled back rooms (until EU intervention) plans are afoot regarding Brexit.

All the signs now point to there being no deal in place by the end of the Article 50 negotiation period.

I take this hard Brexit approach (and thereby a complete refusal to truly negotiate -on both sides) as a ply to force the UK back towards EU membership.

Effectively the plan seems to be the "No-Deal" scenario will be so horrendous there will be a clamour from voters to end the Article 50 process and go back to the loving busom of the EU.

I'm one of the "Hard" Brexiters: exit from the EU is worth ANY cost to the UK. Regaining control of laws, borders trade and everything else the EU sticks it's money-grubbing fingers into is worth the cost. ANY cost.

I know Dan Hannan would like a more reasoned approach, but where money is involved, the EU loses all reason. If we leave, we remove a huge chunk from the EU budget, leaving Germany as the main contributor. I can imagine the New German government will be putting immense pressure on the EU to get a deal where we still contribute money for access to EU markets. Hence the EU's insistance on sorting out the money first and then sorting out trade deals. How exactly we're supposed to negotiate a bill before we know what services we're paying for.I don't know.

To expand on Mr Juncker's Bar analogy, nobody pays the tab up front before they know what they drinks they are are paying for. £5 a glass for a coke is a bit different than £5 for a JD & coke. You pay your share of the tab up to the point you leave the bar. And no-one pays for drinks that are served after they leave the bar.

It's like Mr Juncker going up to a bar and the barman saying "That'll be 100 Euros..." The very next words out of Mr Junckers words would be "What for, I haven't ordered yet!?"

Not what I put my tick in the box on referendum day for.

Sure, if we get a deal that is worth the money, then fair enough, but paying (for instance) the biggest contribution just to be a member of the club but not on the committee should not be an option.

Out means out, as we were told several times by the remain side during the referendum campaign.

Brext "No Deal" debacle continues.

It seems the knioves are out for chancellor Phillips Hammond over his "revelation" that planes may not be able to fly over or into Europe come the day of Brexit.

Actually not a revellation: he didn't make a statement, but an acceptence to a question put to him.

But EU Referendum has been blogging about this and other minutiae that will clog up the arteries of free trade the day after Brexit. That is, unless the two parties understand the issue and work together on a solution.

As it is, there is no sign from the EU side that there is any will to negotiate. Barnier is hamstrug and following his orders from the EU27 to the letter. He uis refusing to talk trade terms without developing the exit terms and our "exit bill" first. It's all about the money.

We've already in their eyes attained "third country" status and they are happy to dictate terms to us and make us capitulate just like they do with countries in Africa and Asia.

Except we are different than those countries: we do a vast amount of trade with the EU. Yes, thanks to frictionless borders, the trade flows pretty well. They do a lot more trade with us than we do with them. They have more to lose by ignoring the relalities of Brexit.

I can imagine the quese of containers of food spoiling at the docks on the way out of Europe as the beaurocratic border checker hold up the export of trade by making sure the t's are crossed and the i's are dittedwill not be looked on well by the traders within the EU. BMW and Mercedes will not be happy that their cars are held away from their intended market.

Quiet rightly if we symied inbound trade on our side, then that would be an issue for the WTO or some similar body to persue, but I'm talking about the EU itself imposing friction on outbound trade. It could be interesting within the EU as citizens and companies start to protest about export issues.

In the meantime, we'll quite happily replace EU imports from somewhere else in the world, side-stepping the EU. Initially under WTO rules but then under more formal trade agreements.

If the hiatus continues, BMW and Mercedes will simply make the cars for the UK market in non-EU countries and ship them here.

There may be a 6 week period of turmoil because that's how long it takes for containers to move from one side of the world to the other, but by hook or by crook, the trade will flow.

From the EU or not. Their call.