The Care Quality Commission [CQC] has released a new state of care report warning that care companies may have to limit their services because of severe staff shortages, leaving many people without the care that they require.
The report indicated that the staffing crisis is being exacerbated by an exodus of care staff leaving the industry and moving on into new and better paid roles in retail and hospitality, with no replacements forthcoming.
To stave off further crisis, the government announced an additional £162.5 million investment into social care to boost staff levels. Ministers also say that a further £5.4 billion will be generated from the National Insurance hike, with £500 million of that funding going into adult social care recruitment.
While the CQC welcomed the investment, it warned that the current social care workforce is “exhausted and depleted”, and that immediate action is needed to address the rising number of vacancies.
The care sector watchdog said: “This investment must be used to enable new ways of working that recognise the interdependency of all health and care settings, not just to prop up existing approaches and to plug demand in acute care.”
Indeed, the number of unfilled roles has been increasing every month, having been at six per cent in April and then 10 per cent in September.
In the capital, 11 per cent of social care jobs are currently vacant, with 9.4 per cent and 9.2 per cent of roles unfilled in the East Midlands and Southwest, respectively.
The impact is that care providers are having to cut back on the services that they provide, according to the report, meaning many are left at risk of not having access to the care services they need going into the winter.
Care sector operators have highlighted burnout from the pandemic, the ‘no jab, no job’ policy, low salaries and changes to immigration rules following Brexit as contributing factors to the current staff shortfall.
Engelina Mafirakurewa, care manager at Hertfordshire-based domiciliary care provider Medow Care Services, believes that the government’s immigration rules on recruiting staff from abroad should be relaxed to enable care providers to tap into the international talent pool as a short-term solution, until greater reform can be implemented.
Mafirakurewa said: “Currently there is an issue with recruitment which needs to be addressed urgently, since the care sector is not getting enough staff. Licences are only being given if you are going to recruit a certain category of staff, such as nurses.
“As home care providers we should be allowed to recruit from abroad like any other care sector, and government rules need to be relaxed to accommodate us and address the shortfall.”
Stacey Mitchell, CEO of domiciliary care provider AllCare Community Support in Norwich, has spoken out against the ‘no jab, no job’ policy, as well as urging government to intervene in instances where able-bodied and working age individuals are choosing to remain unemployed and survive on Universal Credit payments each month, rather than making themselves available to fill social care roles.
“The ‘no jab, no job’ policy is a huge problem, and it is driving staff away. I am supportive of staff saying that it is their individual right to refuse the vaccine because a good number of them have had one dose and were so knocked back by it that they don’t want their second. People should have their personal choices respected but the powers that be take that out of our hands, and it is especially galling that social care has to abide by this rule and NHS staff do not.
“Salaries are problematic: we pay the best salaries we possibly can, but when local authorities are paying even just a couple of pounds more, we don’t have that wiggle room to increase our wages. The staff shortfall has also worsened since Covid, with many people losing their jobs and deciding its easier to not work and live on Universal Credit. People fit for work need to be encouraged to get back into work when sectors like us are struggling.
“We have had numerous experiences of people happy to live on Universal Credit being lined up for interviews with us, and then not turning up. It is a box-ticking exercise for them where they’ve applied for jobs and had interviews lined up, but they don’t have to follow through on them but can keep receiving an income. Universal Credit should be for those in need of it only, and those abusing the system like this need to be cracked down on.”
CQC boss Ian Trenholm said that “urgent action” was needed to address the crisis, and that those already working in the sector “cannot be expected to work any harder” to ease the industry’s woes.
Trenholm said: “If these things [mitigation action] don’t happen there is the genuine risk of a tsunami of unmet need, with many people not getting the care that they so desperately need this winter.
“We can't be in this position in a year's time. We need to be thinking about what systems will look like in the future. We are really clear, there are no silver bullets, there are no simple answers to what is a very, very complex problem.”
The Department of Health and Social Care has paid tribute to stricken staff already working tirelessly within the sector and said that it has supported the industry through “record levels of investment”, including a further £36 billion over the next three years.
The government department also said that it was “working on” reform to the sector to provide “world-leading” services and help social care learn lessons from the pandemic, promising a full public inquiry in the spring of 2022.
Liz Kendall, Labour shadow minister for social care, believes that the recent cash boosts to social care will not solve the problem, echoing her party’s calls for a “ten-year plan of investment and reform” to transform salaries, social care training and working conditions.
Photo by Georg Arthur Pflueger on Unsplash
