Friday

Well, it’s finally happened. I didn’t think it would come to this but my agency is closing down. I suppose I thought that this company would survive – you hear about all the problems with home care businesses and they tell you about being short of money but somehow you don’t really believe it – a bit like cancer or winning the lottery it’s something that happens to someone else, to other companies. But if there’s one thing that you learn doing this job it’s that bad things do happen to people like us, people like me, people who can’t afford it and haven’t done anything to deserve it; we’re the ones that suffer, we’re the ones that get shafted.

We had a letter from the big boss – I mean the top boss. It says they’re pulling out of home care and closing down because they’re not making any money and can’t afford it. It says we’re not to blame but the economics don’t add up. It gives 3 reasons:

• Local authorities aren’t giving price increases or the increases are too small to cover the increases in cost
• The National Living Wage is being introduced and they don’t believe they can afford to pay it
• The Government has introduced a new training requirement called the Care Certificate and they can’t see how to introduce it without major investment which they can’t afford

But, it says, and this is a sort of silver lining, it says that their remaining contracts and staff will transfer to other companies and our jobs will continue under the TUPE regulations.

Well, we’ll see. I remember when Tim, that useless waster, he was working for a cleaning company and they transferred under TUPE to another contractor and his job and his terms and conditions were protected – yeah right – and a week later they were all forced to take a pay cut and work longer hours and then they fired him – well, that’s what he said but to be honest he’s been fired from so many jobs who knows what the real reason was?

Anyway, that’s what the letter says – our jobs will continue but we’ll be working for someone else. Which begs the question – what does this other company do that means they’ll be able to keep going but my agency can’t? Well if I knew that and knew how to run an agency and be successful and make lots of money then I’d do it myself. But I don’t.

They’ve given us 3 months notice before it all closes down which gives us time to meet the other company and make the arrangements. To be honest I’m in 2 minds – I’m sad and disappointed that this agency is closing down but I also have a chance to join another company which (who knows) might be better, or maybe it’s time I did something different with my life – I’ve wiped enough bums!