For a couple of years nearly a decade ago I was a Teaching Assistant and the link will take you to the guide entry I recorded on the subject. One thing it mentions is Higher Level Teaching Assistants. I haven't followed their progress much since, but I can confidently tell you that the use of teaching assistants (who do not, as a rule, have any teaching qualifications) to do the jobs that would once have been the preserve of teachers has moved forward. It's not dissimilar to the Community Support Officers you see in the UK. They have some of the powers of the regular police, but are, as far as I know, unpaid. I'm sure one argument used to persuade people to take on the role is how good it will look on your CV. Well, I'm probably being a trifle cynical, but I fear what is says to potential employers is 'will happily do hard work for no money'. Why do I bring this up? Well, to be honest, I'm a trifle worried that I might be next.

Well, alright, not just me. Carers generally. I may have used this space before to record the story of a man I once met who worked in the mental healthcare system (before budget cuts cost him his job, and carers a wise and intelligent outlet) who was also a carer. He told me of a time his wife had been admitted to hospital as a result of a suicide attempt. Naturally it's not wise to let someone suicidal out without making sure they are no longer a risk to themselves. So professionals were gathered and consensus was arrived at. The plan was that it would all be okay because the woman's husband was her carer and he could look after her. Or, to put it another way, a woman with a life-threatening mental health problem would be put into the sole hands of an unqualified man who would look after her 24 hours a day.

I'm not suggesting that carers aren't good, hard-working people. I'm not suggesting that they aren't often the best people to routinely care for their loves ones. I'm not suggested that, properly supported, they can't be a valuable, even vital, means of keeping people with mental and physical health problems functional, well and happy in their own homes. What I am saying is that they can't do it on their own, and that they are not a cheap alternative to trained professionals. Based on what we have already seen, based on the increasing reliance of the professional army on the numbers of the territorials¹ I fear that the Government's approach to health care, which is extremely expensive and has already talked about making doctors work 80 hour weeks, will look to carers. Some of them get carers allowance of about £59.75 a week² but less than 35 hours a week (34, for example) and you've got no chance. But that doesn't mean someone with a mental heath problem can't be in your care.

By way of a conclusion, I shall finish the story I started telling you earlier. It was put to this chap that his wife could be safely discharged into his care. He explained that she couldn't, because he was leaving her. He wasn't, he was making a point. If he wasn't around, then social services would have to do what they should have done anyway, which is make a proper plan for the care of the poor woman. So they did. The result was, I hope, the harmonious involvement of a husband and a team of social care professionals in supporting a sufferer of a mental illness to live in her home, and the support of the husband in being not just a carer but also a husband, so that he too could have something like a life. Sadly, I don't know whether this is still the case. But it should be.

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