Care Work is a Profession, and it is not ‘Low Skilled’.
Care work is often — to those outside it — seen as only (as if it could be only!) an industry of servitude; a kind of domestic ‘slavery’ and self-sacrifice. While most of this is true, care work is so much deeper, and it does base itself within the wider practice of healthcare. As such, being a carer or a care worker is largely misunderstood, and grossly underestimated. And it’s much worse perceived if you are an unpaid carer. In the UK alone, there are an estimated 6.5 million carers — the vast majority of which are unpaid (i.e. caring from a sense of familial /friendship duty). This is known as ‘caring behind closed doors’. It doesn’t have to be this way. Because the perception of caring is malformed, there is at the very least, an education piece that can be had.
The Labour of Care
As much as a medical role in the community would be, (for example, a visiting health nurse in the community) — care work is entirely a front line health, social, and therapeutic role. And yet care is constantly downgraded as a “low skilled” job despite the fact that it is a profession which demands compassion, sound judgement, and extreme emotional labour — as it would for anyone else working in the health and social sector.
Working to the same models of patient alliance as doctors and nurses
Care and social work is not low skilled. In almost all residential (care homes) and domiciliary (support in the home of independence of the individual), care work is also a medical role so far as administering medication accurately, using hoists to lift and carry patients who have different physical abilities or may not be able to move by themselves; we do indeed have to deal with body fluids, we deal daily with chronic medical conditions, and from that, we deal in personalised care planning and logging, we provide compassion amidst various patient and setting factors — to exactly the same transactional models and consultation cycle that a doctor would; as well as ‘simply’ helping to boost the mental health and wellbeing of those in our care.
That is a lot of work for someone who is ‘low skilled’.
The Same Numbers
In the UK, there are approximately 15 million people living with long term conditions. There is no divide in terms of the pool of people that Care Workers, Doctors, Nurses, Healthcare Assistants and Social Workers dedicate their professional lives to.
Patients, convalescents and those receiving care, too, are influenced by the same factors when it comes to decisions about their healthcare and life care. Those are:
Personal — background and circumstance
Emotional — psychological, ‘set and setting’
Cultural — which also includes religious, dietary and ethical
Economic — including financial and educational
Social — society and public infrastructure at large
And, ideally in any health and care system in the world, we all are able to make choices and ask questions about their treatment and care planning as long as we have capacity to do so. This weirdly isn’t a human right, but I guarantee that everyone in the health and care sectors feel this way about every person on the planet.
Doctors, nurses and care workers all have the same goal in mind — we don’t actually want you to need us that much
In the most Spike Milligan fashion that you can imagine, the great and glorious — but tragic irony — of the social, healthcare and hospitalisation system, is that we don’t want you in it! Anyone could receive that message facetiously; but the truth is thus: we want you to be healthy enough to not need us unless it’s critical that we are there for you.
The goal of healthcare is expansive, wholesome, and inspiring as a sociological structure: it is an on-demand system, intended to help self-actualise a human being, mentally and physically to the best possible standard, respecting the individual at all times. That’s a concept which involves a lot of brains, bodies, blood, fluids, speech acts and a whole lot more to be taking care of, completely uniquely, every single time. So, ‘one size fits all’ is not an approach taken. Where standards slip, it is this which seems to be the consistent thing that trips it: a utilitarian belief appears to make it easier for a patient or convalescent to fall into a chasm of where communication is low and organisations are under-staffed.
Not unique to medical and surgical teams (recognised as ‘high-skilled’), this too is something that the care sector also suffers from. And all of that combined, for anyone aspiring to a career in Care, means that it’s hard work and it’s messy work. It’s a vicious cycle — which is exactly why re-shaping and reforming the perception of Care Work is so important.
And it must start from the top. Saying ‘low-skilled’ when what they mean to say for Care Workers is, ‘low-paid’ — no longer has relevance and has no utility in society.
In an age where safety from infection is as important as preventative care and the management of long term conditions, life-limiting illnesses and chronic disease, Care Work needs to be recognised for the profession that it is.
