Patrick Hurst

What a depressing Labour u-turn on the extension of ILR for Boriswave care workers. It’s not just the huge cost heading our way, it’s the way that care workers are singled out for the sentimental treatment we usually reserve for NHS nurses. For our own benefit as a country we need the average carer to be better paid, better trained, and higher status (I recently wrote a book partly about this The Care Dilemma). But we don’t have to pretend they are all angels: there are some who are v good, most who are average and too many who are useless, as in any walk of life. The immigrant carers are coming here for a better life from poorer often failing societies not because they love looking after British people. In my own last hospital stay most the care assistants were Boriswave women, mostly from Africa - some decent some indifferent - but ALL spoke quite poor and v heavily accented English that was sometimes hard to understand and unless I spoke slowly and deliberately they struggled to understand me. This is obviously a sensitive issue that many people experience but don’t feel able to talk about (though it must be reflected in those low satisfaction surveys), partly because a carer has helped you when you are vulnerable and there is a kind of reflex gratitude even if the care has actually been a bit sloppy or incompetent (and you also feel you’re getting it free so shouldn’t moan, even if you’re paying more and more in tax). Yet it’s crazy that we are spending billions subsidising this when we could be using the money to incentivise British ppl, who speak the language fluently and understand the culture, to do these jobs.