This week, in the UK, Professional Care Workers’ Week is running (September 12-19, 2025). The event is designed to mark the often unnoticed contribution from professional care workers. This is a sector confronted by low pay, funding issues and high vacancy rates.
The event features a series of in person events and free virtual panels and information sessions led by care workers and with care managers, and influential figures from across the sector.
Care workers need more respect and attention for the vital role they play in society, says the CEO of a global tech company in correspondence sent to Digital Journal.
Josh Hough, founder of Slinfold-based homecare software company CareLineLive, says Professional Care Workers’ Week is the perfect time to reflect on our attitude towards this critically important group of people.
Hough was born with the rare muscle weakening condition Minicore Myopathy and spent much of his early life in a wheelchair. He set up CareLineLive in 2014 after his family struggled to get information about his grandfather’s care.
Hough explains, in relation to the Care Workers’ Week: “We must go beyond praising our care workers and focus on real support – starting with digital training and modern tools to ease pressure on exhausted care teams.
“None of us can go to work or run businesses unless we are safe in the knowledge that our families are being looked after.”
Hough goes on to explain that care workers are effectively an “invisible army” doing vital but largely unappreciated work.
“Care workers don’t get the respect or attention they deserve. They are this invisible army, working behind the scenes but keeping the economy afloat by looking after families.”
Figures from the insurance broker PolicyBee suggest that about 820,000 people in the UK receive care at home. Hough says this makes home care a key economic issue.
Following this, Hough observes: “These are huge numbers of people and without carers many of us wouldn’t be able to go to work as we’d be needed at home. So we all benefit from home care this work, either directly or indirectly, and we certainly notice when it isn’t available.”
Hough has thrown his company’s full support behind Professional Care Workers’ Week and the ‘Wear it Orange’ campaign which has been created by the Care Workers Charity. With more than 152,000 vacancies in adult social care, Hough says we need to do more to elevate the status of care workers.
“We should recognise it as a profession and focus on improving skills and professionalism in the sector. As a child, I personally received a lot of care and more recently other family members have too,” adds Hough.
He concludes stating: “So we are very proud to partner with the Care Workers Charity and myself and the team will be proudly wearing it orange.”
