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£7 an hour, receives an extra £1 an hour for a night shift and £2 an hour for weekends.

"The NHS encourages you to have these NVQs, all this training, improve your knowledge, and then they [private care companies] come along and it all comes to nothing.

Care UK expects to make a profit "of under 6%" by the end of the three-year contract

£700,000 operating profit in the six months between September last year and March this year,

In 1993 the private sector provided 5% of the state-funded services given to people in their homes, known as domiciliary care. By 2012 this had risen to 89% – largely driven by the local authorities' need for cheaper ways to deliver services and the private sector's assurance that they could provide the answer. More than £2.7bn is spent by the state on this type of care every year. Private providers have targeted wages as a way to slice out profits, de-skilling the sector in the process.

1.4 million care workers in England are unregulated by any professional body and less than 50% have completed a basic NVQ2 level qualification, with 30% apparently not even completing basic induction trainin

Today 8% of care homes are supplied by private equity-owned firms – and the number is growing. The same is true of 10% of services run for those with learning disabilities

William Laing

report on private equity in July 2012

"It makes pots of money.

Those profits – which are made before debt payments and overheads – don't appear on the bottom line of the health firms' company accounts, and because of that corporation tax isn't paid on them.

Some of that was in payments on loans issued in Guernsey, meaning tax could not be charged. Its sister company, Silver Sea, responsible for funding the construction of Care UK care homes, is domiciled in the tax haven of Luxembourg

Bridgepoint

.voterDiv .ob_bctrl{display:none;} .ob_pdesc IMG{border:none;} .AR_1 .ob_what{direction:ltr;text-align:right;clear:both;padding:5px 10px 0px;} .AR_1 .ob_what a{color:#999;font-size:10px;font-family:arial;text-decoration: none;} .AR_1 .ob_what.ob-hover:hover a{text-decoration: underline;} .AR_1 .ob_clear{clear:both;} .AR_1 .ob_amelia, .AR_1 .ob_logo, .AR_1 .ob_text_logo {display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 5px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} .AR_1 .ob_amelia{background:url('http://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px;} .AR_1 .ob_logo{background:url('http://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:12px;} .AR_1 .ob_text_logo{background:url('http://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_text_logo_66x23.png') no-repeat center top;width:66px;height:23px;} .AR_1:hover .ob_amelia, .AR_1:hover .ob_logo, .AR_1:hover .ob_text_logo{background-position:center bottom;} .AR_1 .ob_org_header { border-top: 10px solid #D61D00; display: block; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-top: 5px; } More from the guardian Rogeting: why 'sinister buttocks' are creeping into students' essays 08 Aug 2014 Theatre's decision to ban Jewish film festival is 'thin end of wedge' 09 Aug 2014 Sir Paul Nurse: 'I looked at my birth certificate. That was not my mother's name' 09 Aug 2014 Adventures in contraception: eight women discuss their choices 10 Aug 2014 Child prison deaths 08 Aug 2014 [?] .voterDiv .ob_bctrl{display:none;} .ob_pdesc IMG{border:none;} .AR_2 .ob_what{direction:ltr;text-align:right;clear:both;padding:5px 10px 0px;} .AR_2 .ob_what a{color:#999;font-size:10px;font-family:arial;text-decoration: none;} .AR_2 .ob_what.ob-hover:hover a{text-decoration: underline;} .AR_2 .ob_clear{clear:both;} .AR_2 .ob_amelia, .AR_2 .ob_logo, .AR_2 .ob_text_logo {display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 5px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} .AR_2 .ob_amelia{background:url('http://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px;} .AR_2 .ob_logo{background:url('http://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:12px;} .AR_2 .ob_text_logo{background:url('http://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_text_logo_66x23.png') no-repeat center top;width:66px;height:23px;} .AR_2:hover .ob_amelia, .AR_2:hover .ob_logo, .AR_2:hover .ob_text_logo{background-position:center bottom;} .AR_2 .ob_org_header { border-top: 10px solid #D61D00; display: block; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-top: 5px; } /* updated via mysql on 2014-04-08 */ .AR_2 .ob_what { display: block; } /* added via mysql on 2014-06-20 */ .OUTBRAIN:hover .ob_what a { text-decoration: underline; } .ob_box_cont.AR_2 { padding-bottom: 5px; } /* end mysql add */ /* added via mysql on 2014-07-14 */ .AR_2 .ob_org_header span { color: #999; font-family: arial; font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal; display: block; } /* end 2014-07-14 */ More from around the webPromoted content by Outbrain http://paid.outbrain.com/network/redir?p=0iZOm4XuGW6R5uuT6ZFciNevzJlIfmxs0SRwpiMrH7gWrMXoPie4vIA9PlhaEW%2BXNi57pCgl9j8yOE3HuJT75pwCLNj4n18v3EKQDEV0YFQjOBxc46mOs

In December 2009, the health superboard launched a centralized menu program with a rotating 21-day meal plan at the centres.

In September, 2010, then-premier Ed Stelmach vowed to review food services at the rural and acute-care facilities.

There was no fresh fruit, no fresh vegetables.

Scrambled eggs poured from a container, watery mashed potatoes and unrecognizable chicken heated from a package

The union's film, "Tough to swallow: Meals that sparked a seniors revolt," follows Claresholm residents who fought for two years for AHS to restore full-service kitchens.

By the time of her death, most of her back had been engulfed by a raw, red rash, painful to the touch, and a large bedsore. Her medical records bluntly stated she was malnourished.

Although the focus was on Warholm, the investigation widened to other long-term care homes, with the office receiving 89 complaints from all over the province.

The investigation found a lack of communication with families, a culture of keeping concerns quiet out of fear of reprisals and struggles in finding staff and ensuring each resident receives enough care.

The Greek healthcare system is in meltdown after years of austerity. State-run hospitals have had to slash budgets but as much as 50% in that time. Basic supplies such as gloves, syringes, gauze, cotton wool, catheters and paper towels have long been in low supply. The numbers of doctors and nurses is critically low.

The local doctors, ranging from urologists and cardiologists to paediatric surgeons, take turns to work for free

Five years ago, most of the patients at this clinic were refugees or other foreign nationals with no access to healthcare. Now, the 1,500 patients who come each month are largely Greeks, many of whom once ran businesses or shops in the city but who are now unemployed and with no healthcare access.

In a country which has seen a rise in diseases such as TB and malaria during the crisis years, children’s health has suffered.

There has been a tremendous effort to put the needs of patients first, but now there are signs of burn​out in doctors

York University Professor Tamara Daly will lead a research program studying the gendered health impacts of performing paid and unpaid care work for seniors in long-term care (LTC) settings.

The professor has been awarded one of nine Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) research chairs in Gender Work and Health. The program, Working well: understanding how gender influences working conditions and health in long term care settings across Canada and internationally, will receive $800,000 in CIHR funding over five years

“Health care work is unhealthy and at times dangerous work, with the most challenging conditions prevailing in LTC settings. We don’t often talk about gender in LTC settings even though care work is primarily performed by women,” says Daly, a professor at the School of Health Policy and Management in York U’s Faculty of Health.

(Watch the video)

the private sector expects to win £20 billion of business from the NHS, according to the corporate finance adviser Catalyst

a few gluttonous companies—Virgin Care, Serco, Care UK—have secured dominant positions in the market

The biggest privatisations are taking place in community health services.

Local NHS bodies have already been instructed to outsource 39 types of service. Dubbed the “39 steps to privatisation,” this covers everything from autism care to wheelchair provision.

privatisation favours a few big winners over the co-ops, charities and social enterprises

Many Hospital Trusts are being pushed to the financial brink by the disastrous legacy of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI)

In a first for the private sector, in February 2012 Circle took over an entire general hospital at Hinchingbrooke in Cambridgeshire. The hospital has since fallen 19 places in the patient satisfaction rankings and its finances have worsened, forcing Circle to ask for a bailout after just six months. Despite being prepared to make a potential 20 percent cut to the hospital’s workforce, and while mostly owned by investment funds operating out of tax-havens like the Caymen Islands, Circle nevertheless vaunts its friendly-sounding business model under which doctors and nurses are given part-ownership of the company.

another controversial aspect of the Health and Social Care Act—the ability for NHS hospitals to earn half their income from private patients

revealed a tragic case where a consultant left half way through a dangerous birth to carry out a private caesarean section. The baby later died.

many of the dominant players in the new market are owned by ruthless private equity firms

the collapse of the Southern Cross care-home company

All of this comes before the most high-profile part of the Health and Social Care Act has even been fully implemented—the replacement of PCTs with Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs)

largely unaccountable new groups, who will in turn outsource the work to privatised “commissioning support units”