Coronavirus: Laid-off flight attendant joins estate agents and massage therapists taking care jobs

Flight attendants, estate agents, teachers and massage therapists, who lost their jobs in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, have been hired to work at home care firm Caremark.

Cabin crew worker Abigail Byrne stopped taking to the skies to serve passengers in planes and is now caring for people in their own homes, after the COVID-19 crisis hit the airline industry hard, triggering job losses.

The flight attendant had only just begun training at a new airline when the coronavirus affected the UK.

Like many in aviation she lost her job but she felt many of her skills, such as first aid, medication training and working with people, were transferrable to home care.

Abi Byrne decided to join Caremark and now travels between eight home care clients each day giving personal care, doing household chores and companionship.

Ms Byrne hopes eventually, she will once again take to the skies but loves her new job.

Thousands of Airlines UK staff who have been furloughed or made redundant as a result of the pandemic, have been offered the chance to retrain as care workers by care providers keen to address the care sector’s staffing issues.

Skills of airline staff easily transferable to social care

Airlines such as British Airways have let go thousands of staff but care providers have spotted that the skills possessed by the UK’s airline personnel are highly transferable to social care.

Abi Byrne is among many new recruits at Caremark Ltd, which has been busy hiring laid-off workers, as well as those who have been furloughed or are self-employed, from a diverse range of sectors. Hope Fellows is an estate agent who is used to travelling all over the country to meet property buyers, sellers, landlords and tenants.

When the estate agent lost her job but needed to work, she decided to try working in home care for Caremark.

Hope Fellows says she finds her work “incredibly rewarding” and has a new-found level of awareness and respect for care workers.

Although she is restarting her estate agency job soon (with the easing of lockdown restrictions helping estate agents to go out and sell property again), Ms Fellows is planning to continue working at Caremark part time.

This, she says, is because she can’t bear to say goodbye to her home care clients.

Massage therapist Anne Lawrence operated her own massage, reflexology and aromatherapy business, before COVID-19 lockdown restricted her contact with clients.

With previous experience of working in care, she was able to use her experience to take up a Caremark job and says she loves it just as much now as she did then.

Anne Lawrence says being a masseuse, she can “soothingly” apply moisturising cream to dry skin and joints to the delight of her home care clients.

’Unprecedented numbers of applicants’

All the new recruits have received training at Caremark, which has 128 franchisees in the UK, India and Malta. Its home care services include live-in care. Caremark is urging anyone interested in caring for others to consider a career at Caremark. David Glover, Caremark’s managing director, said: “COVID-19 is placing massive pressures on the care system, as well as businesses across a wide range of industry sectors.

“This is creating a unique set of circumstances and we are seeing unprecedented numbers of applicants from all walks of life applying for front-line care and support worker roles. “We’d like to warmly welcome all our new-starters and hope that many decide to stay on after COVID-19 ends and things start going back to normal.”

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