Call care workers like me skilled – and pay us properly -

At work, I am part psychologist, nurse, bereavement counsellor, occupational therapist, mental health advocate, group therapist and palliative care expert.

- WENDY EVERED

What am I? The answer, of course, is a care worker. And yet this week, the message from the government was that I and thousands like me are low-skilled”. Tell that to the people we look after and the families who love them.

When Labour announced plans on Monday to scrap a visa scheme for overseas social care recruitment in a drive to bring down “low-skilled” migration, it was just the latest in a long line of negative messages about the sector I work in. The irony, though, is that we need to value caring now more than ever because the industry is in crisis, and what’s keeping it afloat is the goodwill of workers – mostly women.

Around 80 per cent of carers are female – their work is critically undervalued financially, but also socially. Wages are low, we’re constantly being told we have no skills, and it’s leaving many of us feeling unappreciated and invisible. But after working in social care for more than three decades, I know from experience how complex the work we do is and why we have to recognise its worth more than ever.

I started working as a carer when I was 26 after training as a nurse and developing an interest in community care. Today, 34 years later, I work as a manager at a medium-sized family-run home called the Alexander Care Home in Morley, Leeds, and I’m lucky to be part of a team that feels like a family. But there’s no doubt that caring is tougher now than when I started out because a lot of the people who would once have had specialist nursing care are now being looked after in the community.