Komal

I learned to care for people by watching my grandmother's face light up when her carers arrived each morning. She had dementia, and those women , always women , had this way of speaking to her that brought her back to herself, even for a few minutes. I was sixteen then, helping Mum translate when the doctor came, and I knew I wanted to do work that mattered like theirs did.

After college, I spent three years as a care assistant before having my children. Best job I ever had, honestly. You're tired at the end of every shift, but you go home knowing you've made someone's day better. When my youngest started school this year, I was ready to go back. The local care homes were advertising constantly , you'd see the same job posted week after week, like they couldn't fill the positions. I thought it would be straightforward.

I called Lewisham Council's adult social care department first, thinking they'd know where the opportunities were. The woman I spoke to was kind but blunt. "We desperately need carers," she said, "but I have to be honest about the pay. Our current rates are £9.80 per hour because of central government funding constraints. I know it's not much, but that's what we can offer." She sounded tired saying it, like she'd had this conversation many times before.

I applied to six private care homes across the constituency. Each interview started the same way , they were delighted I had experience, they had immediate openings, they needed someone like me. Then came the pay discussion. The manager at Bright Horizons Care Home in East Dulwich was refreshingly honest. "We'd love to hire you, but the council contract only covers £11 per hour for care, and after our overheads, we simply cannot afford more than £9.50." She showed me the contract terms on her computer screen. "Look, this is what the council pays us per hour of care. Then we have to cover supervision, training, holiday pay, national insurance, our building costs. What's left is what we can offer you."

Every care home told me the same story. The council rates hadn't increased in real terms for years, but everything else had. Insurance costs, fuel for care visits, the minimum wage itself. They were all caught between wanting to pay properly and being locked into contracts that didn't cover the real cost of delivering care. One manager at Forest Hill put it simply: "The budget has been cut every year for five years. We're trying to deliver the same service with less money each time."

I accepted this at first. It sounded reasonable. Everyone was doing their best with limited resources. That's what the newspapers said too , councils were broke, there wasn't enough money to go around, tough choices had to be made.

Then I decided to upgrade my qualifications. I'd done my Level 2 diploma at South Thames College years ago, so I went back to enquire about the Level 3 NVQ in Health and Social Care. The building looked exactly the same, but something felt different as soon as I walked in.

The course coordinator took me to see one of the classrooms. It was set up for twenty students , four rows of five desks, each with its own computer terminal and practice equipment. Six students were sitting in the front row, leaving fourteen empty spaces behind them. "We'd love to fill this room," she told me. "The demand for qualified carers is enormous. But people can't afford to train for jobs that pay £9.50 an hour. They'd earn more stacking shelves at Tesco."

She walked me past three other health and social care classrooms, all of them running half-empty or less. Thousands of pounds worth of training equipment sitting unused. "We have the capacity to train three times as many people," she said, "but we can't make the economics work for them. They're not being unreasonable , they have rent to pay."

Walking home through my estate afterwards, I started seeing my neighbourhood differently. Mrs Patterson from downstairs used to work in care before she had her kids. Ahmed's wife Fatima had five years' experience before they moved here. The woman in the corner shop mentioned she'd done care work back in Somalia but couldn't find anything here that paid enough. I counted twelve people just on my route home who had care experience but were signing on instead of working in the sector they knew.

The children they were caring for were in school now. Their care experience hadn't vanished. Their skills were still there, their willingness to do the work was still there. They were living in the same streets as elderly people who needed care, who were on waiting lists for care packages, whose families were desperate for help.

I sat in my kitchen that evening, looking at the job listings I'd printed out. Every care home was advertising. Every one offered below the wage I'd earned three years ago. The training centre had empty classrooms. My neighbours had experience and time. The elderly residents had unmet needs.

If the people existed, and the skills could be taught, and the buildings were there, what exactly was it that "there was no money" for? The government that prints the money chose not to spend the money that would connect all these pieces. The notes in my wallet had "Bank of England" printed on them, not "Lewisham Council" or "Bright Horizons Care Home."

The excuse started sounding different. Not like a fact of nature, but like a decision someone had made. The government that issues pounds told me it could not find enough pounds to pay care workers properly, while care workers stood ready to work and elderly people waited for care. The limit wasn't the money , money is just numbers that allow resources to move. The limit was the willingness to create those numbers and direct them here, to this work, these people.

I'm still here, still looking, still watching. But I understand something now that I didn't understand six months ago. When someone in Westminster says there's no money for social care, they're not describing a natural law. They're describing a choice. The pounds exist. The Bank of England can create as many as the economy can absorb. The question was never whether the money existed. It was whether the people in power believed our work , caring for vulnerable people , was worth doing properly.

Every conversation I had was the same conversation happening in every constituency where people need care and people want to provide it, but someone in a government office has decided the numbers in the computer don't allow it. This isn't my story alone. It's the story of every place where real people and real needs exist side by side while someone in Westminster insists the cupboard is bare.