Latest news with #Townson
New European
18-05-2025
- Business
- New European
Labour's immigration plans will close my care home
As he tries to stall Reform's surge with a crackdown on visas for lower-skilled workers, Keir Starmer has decided that care homes will no longer be able to recruit from overseas. For Dr Stephens, this is madness. Dr Elizabeth Stephens owns and runs a care home in Lincoln. When I chatted to her about the government's latest immigration policy she was spitting nails. Before Covid she employed four eastern Europeans out of a staff of 47, but they didn't return after the pandemic. Now 60-80% of her staff are either of Indian or African background. Without them, she explains, she wouldn't have a business at all. 'If we cannot sponsor visas or recruit overseas staff, we cannot run a care home,' she says. Dr Stephens is not alone in that analysis. Dr Jane Townson OBE, chief executive of the Homecare Association agrees. She represents carers who look after people in their own homes, a sector that employs more people than care homes, and says: 'The government has pulled the rug out from under our feet. It feels like this is a kneejerk reaction to Reform's success in the local elections, and without a plan' In the last two years 70,000 British carers have left the workforce and yet we know that by 2040 we will need another 540,000 additional care workers as the population ages. Already 25% of the care workforce are immigrants, and the industry estimates it will need 540,000 additional care workers by 2040 to meet rising demand. Dr Townson is very doubtful that local British workers will turn up in anything like large enough numbers to fill that gap. 'It's really difficult,' she told me. 'Half of British applicants don't even turn up for interview, they just apply to keep getting benefits, they have no intention of turning up.' But it is not just a matter of gaming the system. Unison's head of social care Gavin Edwards says, 'While hourly pay rates remain stuck just above the legal minimum and zero-hours contracts are commonplace, the care sector isn't an attractive career choice. People know they can earn more delivering parcels or making coffees on the high street'. Another problem is that the workforce that is currently available mostly lives in the wrong part of the country. There are lots of people looking for work in London and other big cities, but much less in the countryside, where people retire. Read more: Money alone will not fix the NHS Foreign workers are more likely to go where the work is, and Dr Townson says there are other reasons to prefer them too: 'Immigrants are excellent, better educated than our domestic workers, many have nursing qualifications, they work longer hours – a minimum of 37.5 hours and many work more.' But Yvette Cooper doesn't seem to care about any of that. In the panic to try to bring down immigration numbers she is now claiming that it is 'time to end that care worker recruitment from abroad'. Yet the home secretary must know full well that even with huge levels of foreign recruitment the care sector is currently short of 131,000 workers. Firms will now have to try to recruit British nationals, although the government will not be drawn on who is going to find the money necessary to attract British workers into the sector. In a world where British people were willing to do the work at the current pay rate, there would be no need to use immigrants. But they are not, so higher pay and better conditions are the only way the sector can try to attract more British staff. In return, this means either higher fees for elderly patients or increased costs for local government, which funds so much care and is a bill that will finally have to be paid by HM Treasury. Gavin Edwards says: 'Better-paid domestic workforce in social care is vital, as is a proper career structure. But none of this will happen overnight. Until it does, the sector will be stuck in a doom-loop of staffing shortages. It's only the recruitment of workers from overseas that's stopped the system from falling over.' Elizabeth Stephens knows this only too well. She has tried recruiting British staff, but they complain about the pay, the hours and the work. Of three apprentices she recruited, two dropped out, because they didn't like the hours. Elizabeth also believes immigrants work harder, have a fantastic attendance record and are very compassionate. She would recruit more locals but 'British people just do not apply for the jobs'. Even paying more won't attract British workers Elizabeth claims because 'they just do not want to do the work', while the government's claim that it will just train more British care workers to fill the gaps runs against all the evidence. The government's policy of ending the recruitment of foreign care workers is therefore likely to cause a deepening crisis in a care sector which is already struggling, and it will also almost certainly cost more in the long term too. The policy is stupid and it is also short sighted. The care sector is the poor relative of the NHS, but an underappreciated one. The NHS constantly finds that its beds are occupied by elderly patients who do not really need to be there – they should be in care instead. Better care would release thousands of beds and cost much less than keeping people in hospitals too. It's therefore baffling to see the government going against the facts, the evidence and the NHS's best interest by removing access to the very workers who would care for the people filling those care beds. And all, it seems, for a panicked reaction to Reform's surge in the polls – even though attempting to outflank Nigel Farage and co on immigration is a fool's errand. The government should have made the case for immigration to help out the health and care sectors – an Ipsos poll just before last year's election showed that 51% of people are only too happy to recruit foreign doctors or nurses into the NHS and 42% have no problem with immigrant care home workers. Instead, we are pushing a creaking care system to the point of no return just for a cheap headline. It is careless and callous.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Dad running ultra-marathon for 'special angel'
A former professional rugby player is set to run an ultra-marathon in memory of his "angel" daughter who died suddenly at two years old. Bristol Bears coach Glen Townson, who played for the team before his retirement, will run 44 miles from Ashton Gate to the Principality Stadium in Cardiff to deliver the match-day ball for the Bears v Bath game on Saturday. He and three friends are raising money for the Amber Townson Foundation, set up in memory of his daughter Amber who died in August 2023 of Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood (SUDC). "When it initially happens, you're all over the place. You think 'Why you? How has this happened to us?'," Mr Townson told the BBC. "I definitely feel like [preparing for] an endurance race allows you that thinking time and come to terms with it." SUDC is the unexpected death of a child aged between one and 18 that remains unexplained, and affects about 40 children every year in the UK. Amber, Mr Townson said, was a "cheeky" two-year-old, "a bit of an entertainer" and a "loving, caring little girl" who idolised her older sister. Mr Townson said the day before she died was "just a normal day", and when she appeared to have slept later than usual the following morning, the family "thought nothing too much of it". But when Mr Townson went in to wake her, he immediately realised something was wrong. "She just wasn't responsive, she was so cold," he said. Despite immediately carrying out cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), and the further efforts of paramedics who rushed to the scene, Amber could not be revived. "She wasn't ill. We hadn't recognised anything. And at that point in time it was just pure shock, really, of like 'what's going on?'," Mr Townson said. The family were rushed to Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, where they met with specialists to try to understand what could have happened to Amber. "We were like 'well surely there has to be a cause, there has to be. She can't just die'," Mr Townson said. The family had never heard of SUDC and had been shocked to find out one in four childhood deaths are counted with such a cause. It was the confirmation of this, months after Amber's death, that led he and his wife Tara setting up the foundation with the aim of supporting other families as well as promoting research into similar deaths. "It will never bring your child back, but it will hopefully maybe help parents come to terms with what it is," Mr Townson said. While the diagnosis of SUDC had been hard to come to terms with, he explained it left room for an "element of hope" that perhaps there would one day be answers. "We've had the option to keep tissue samples of Amber, so if in 10, 20 years time new developments happen they actually could run tests on those and have some more answers," he said. Looking toward the run on Saturday, Mr Townson said he felt a "a combination of excitement and a little bit of nerves as well, just with the sheer scale of the challenge". "I'm certainly not built for long distance running," he joked, but added the prospect of an ultra-marathon was dwarfed by what he and his family had already been through. "Having this purpose of helping others has has helped us navigate our way through," he said. Follow BBC Bristol on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630. Parents of sudden-death children 'let down by NHS' 'We deserve answers as to why our children died' 'No-one can tell me why my son died in his sleep' Amber Townson Foundation Bristol Bears
Otago Daily Times
08-05-2025
- Health
- Otago Daily Times
Book recounts cancer journey
Less than 24 hours after a visit to her GP, Invercargill woman Diane Townson found herself in Dunedin Hospital being scheduled for urgent chemotherapy. On June 15, 2023, the 62-year-old mother and grandmother was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) at Southland Hospital. After the shock diagnosis and trip to Dunedin for crucial treatment, Mrs Townson had the presence of mind to keep a diary of the journey she would weather for the next two years. "It was when I tried to find something to read about what was going on, what to expect — I could find nothing." She believed the lack of available information was due to fast-evolving haematology information and practices, which could quickly become outdated. So she used her experiences to write a book that would help others. "I wasn't going to write a book for a start, but I did start the diary. "I'm not the sort of person that writes a book. I think it was therapeutic when I got home. "There were lots of tears at times, and there was lots of laughter. My sons have all written their version of events at times when I was too high on morphine to know what the hell I was doing." The limited-edition book was officially launched last Friday. It was not just patients who walked the cancer journey, she said. "You'll read why I've shared my story — [it's] not just support for me, support for all my family — it's s... for them too, going through this." Her hairdressing business was closed, while her husband, Peter, took 12 months' unpaid leave from his job. "It's been a very emotional time ... There's been a lot of changes." She was pleased the Invercargill Public Library now had two copies of her My Shitty Gap Year available for the public. Dunedin Hospital haematologist Dr Jared Williams' foreword said Mrs Townson took the initial diagnosis well and was only ever focused on fighting the disease. He wrote: "The first round of chemotherapy was tough on Diane physically and mentally. "She developed a life-threatening pneumonia and sepsis requiring a period in the intensive care unit where there was no guarantee she would make it through ... but she did and was all but only interested in pushing on. Diane's determination and grit was inspiration and she was tremendously supported by her husband Peter." Mrs Townson said all the proceeds of her book sales would be donated to the Bone Marrow Cancer Trust and Leukaemia & Blood Cancer New Zealand. The publishing cost of the 200 copies was paid for by crowdfunding. Copies can be bought by emailing dianetownson23@
