Following the latest update to the Skills for Care report on the adult social care workforce, think tank The King’s Fund has said that the report is indicative of “the absolute crisis” the industry is facing in recruitment.
Senior fellow at The King’s Fund, Simon Bottery, commented: “These figures are evidence of the absolute crisis social care faces when trying to recruit staff, a crisis that has profound consequences for people needing care.
“Last year saw – for the first time- an actual fall in the number of people working in the social care sector. Despite increasing demand for services, around 50,000 fewer people worked in social care last year and there were 165,000 care worker vacancies, the equivalent to one in every nine posts being unfilled, and the highest since records began.”
Bottery pointed out that one of the key factors behind these declining numbers was remuneration, with pay in social care lagging behind the NHS and other industries such as retail and hospitality.
“Our recent analysis found that nearly 400,000 care workers would be better paid working in most supermarkets,” Bottery explained.
“A sustained lack of funding has left us with an adult social care system that is failing the people who rely on it, as well as the people who work in it. The social care sector relies on the dedication of skilled, caring individuals working hard in increasingly challenging conditions. As staff shortages continue to heap unstainable pressure on an already stretched workforce, we risk spiralling into a vicious circle that makes it ever harder to fill these vacancies.”
The UK government has recently announced a package of new funding to help prevent bed blocking in NHS hospitals by discharging patients into social care settings. However, Bottery warned that this needs pressure alleviating strategy needed to be backed-up by a comprehensive workforce strategy to avoid simply moving the crisis elsewhere.
“While the new government’s announcement of additional funding to support discharging people from hospital into social care is welcome, social care is much more than a release valve for NHS pressures.
“A short-term, short-notice pot of cash is not going to help social care tackle long-term problems like unmet need, quality of care, or staff recruitment and retention. A major part of the solution is a better paid and trained workforce with real career progression. That in turn requires the sustainable funding, long term workforce plan and other reforms that social care has long been promised but have yet to materialise.”
Photo by Dominik Lange on Unsplash
