posted on Feb, 7 2018 @ 09:33 AM
a reply to:
Painterz
Umm, from reading the stories in the OP, it would seem that you don't quite have your conclusion correct:
At heart, this is a case of shameful buck-passing by the government. A large proportion of sleep-in care is funded by the state, but it
subcontracts charities and private companies to provide it. There are rising cost pressures on providers; despite our ageing population, council
budgets for care have fallen by up to 30% in some areas.
At the same time, the costs of care have risen as a result of the increasing minimum wage and increased regulatory standards. The government has made
some extra funding available, but nowhere near enough to close the gap.
Mencap says half of local authorities simply aren’t building the higher costs of sleep-in shifts into their contracts. This leaves charities and
private providers in an impossible position. Do they pull out of contracts in which the numbers don’t add up, making carers redundant and uprooting
the care of vulnerable people? Or do they carry on operating for as long as they can, at a loss?
Source
The problem, it would seem, is not with the contracted care companies, but with the subsidization that the government provides versus the actual cost
of mandated minimum wages and increasing costs of business in the face of, in some places, 30% decreases in funding for the same medical services.
It's the government at the core of the issue, and the quoted text asks very good questions: Do the contractors pull out of contracts because the
numbers don't add up, or should they continue providing care at a financial loss until they have to put up the out-of-business sign?
I know that it's easy to blame the big bad business owners and "private" health providers, but you're implying an incorrect solution to an actual
problem. What you are looking at is a government that apparently incorrectly advised these companies on compensation for these employees, and now the
same government is saying that these companies now owe back pay (and have 15 months to tell the government how much they owe).
At the same time, according to the stories in the OP, the government is still uncertain as to whether or not it will help aid these companies in their
backpay to employees (even though the accusation is that culpability lies on the government in the first place for their ill-advisement of salary
rules, we must remember). And then to top it all off, not only are these companies reliant on the government funds for operation and this owed
backpay, but now the same government isn't even certain if a "bailout" for these companies is even allowed under rules devised by the EU.
Where, in all of this, does the foundation of the problem become the greed of the business owners?