Care minister must learn care cannot be simply predicated on the basis of private profit

The warning of care minister Norman Lamb that the next great scandal could come in domestic care sector is well founded.


The sector is dominated by low paid and sometimes untrained staff on zero hour contracts doing a vital caring job. Regulation in the area is virtually non-existent.

What is required to improve the situation is not more ministerial hand ringing whilst handing out another shoal of care and health service contracts to the private sector.

There has to be a recognition that profit and care do not mix. Until our society recognises that not every public service can be predicated according to how much money can be made out it by the private sector then there will be little progress.

Care staff do a vital job of work, so should be rewarded accordingly. The companies should be made to put their staff on proper salaried contracts with decent pay and conditions, not zero hour contracts paying the minimum wage, whilst the company grab ever bigger profits.

At another level, there needs to be a total change of attitude to life itself, with the elderly today increasingly being seen as burdens to be either warehoused in care homes or haphazardly served at home. Maybe the children need to take a greater responsibility for their parents as they grow older.

This is the time when the child repays the debt to that parent for all that they did to bring them up in the world. Care should be a generational thing.

Society should also recognise this relationship and provide the requisite support for child and parent, not simply leave everyone floundering and dependent on a voracious private sector motivated only by profit.

15/6/2013  - Guardian letters