Zeenat Jeewa is the CEO of the Asian People’s Disability Alliance [APDA] charity in Brent, London. Its role is to provide services to meet the needs of disabled people and carers in the Asian community. Given its position on the frontline of social care, Zeenat is more than familiar with the enormous challenges facing the industry. Sitting down on The Leaders Council Podcast, Zeenat highlights these issues in greater detail.
Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the social care sector was facing enormous challenges. Financial pressures were longstanding and unrelenting, workforce shortages were increasing, its workforce undervalued, and the provider market was becoming all the narrower for these problems, all of which affect the quality of care provided and the wellbeing of the service user.
The challenge of the Covid-19 pandemic has shone a light over these issues, but only after having exacerbated them. Staffing issues within the sector have been grossly inflated during the crisis, with social care workers among the highest mortality rates by occupation in the first wave of Covid, sickness absence increased, anxiety and mental health issues among staff sharply rose and working conditions deteriorated with fewer staff and increased pressure.
Although staffing issues were well-documented, health secretary Sajid Javid pressed ahead with implementing the infamous ‘no-jab no-job’ policy from November 11, 2021, which dictated that care staff who had not been vaccinated against Covid would be forced to leave their roles.
While compulsory vaccination sparked backlash over ethical question marks, it offered little respite to care providers who faced the prospect of losing more staff members amid recruitment shortages. APDA was no exception in this respect.
Sharing her experience on The Leaders Council Podcast, Zeenat [pictured] said: “The policy has had quite a huge impact on all of us in the care sector and we’ve lost a few staff members as a result of it. Sadly, these were very good, hard working and dedicated staff who felt that their choice was not to have the vaccination and they stuck by that.
“Fortunately, we have overall had a good retention rate of staff because many did choose to have the jab and continue to provide care now. So, it’s a balance of positives and some sadness on the other hand. However, building a staff base back up in this industry takes time and with the number of people requiring care, it puts us in a bit of a predicament.”
Elaborating on the more longstanding issues behind the care sector skills shortfall, Zeenat explained that the enduring underfunding of social care and worsening working conditions following Covid had also fuelled on exodus of staff leaving for industries with better salaries and more a more favourable working environment.
“This is an ongoing problem in care. Even with staff who have the best will in the world, they have to pay bills to survive and live. If there is a choice that they’re presented with out of staying in care with poor remuneration or leaving for another sector with higher wages, even with how dedicated they are to us they have to take the route of going into another job.
“Often in this situation, its retailers and supermarkets that win because they get very good and very dedicated staff coming in. Losing staff always affects the amount and quality of care we can provide our service users.”
Zeenat’s belief is that the longstanding undervaluing of the care sector workforce and of care as a profession by society and those in positions of power is also a blame factor for the predicament that the industry has found itself in. This undervaluing has also helped fuel a negative perception of the industry, which only makes the challenge of recruiting carers even more difficult.
Zeenat said: “I think what's forgotten about the care sector is the skill that it takes to deliver care. I think it's been highly undervalued for many, many years. That isn’t just the physical skills either, it's the soft skills that people aren't aware of, such as the ability to engage and speak to people, and then support them.
“Because the sector has been undervalued, a lot of people don’t want to work in care. Then when it comes to looking at immigration to fill the shortfall of skills, the role of the care worker has never been identified as a skilled one. That makes it hard for us to recruit and retain even from abroad, so there is little respite to what is a central issue for us, and it limits what we can do and has a huge impact on our services and our end users.
“The impact of so much as a missed call as a result of lack of staff is hugely underestimated and there have been thousands of cases of these which can all have a detrimental impact on care receivers.”
While the role of a carer can be incredibly rewarding in terms of goodwill for those who work in the industry, it is also a relentless and exhausting line of work for which the financial rewards are minimal. With many having been exhausted and traumatised through the pandemic, Zeenat believes that now is the time to create a better environment for carers and provide them with what they deserve for having displayed the utmost dedication through the health crisis.
“During the pandemic when we had the lockdown, I think everybody acknowledged the role that key workers played in our society and care staff were at the heart of that. They carried out through the pandemic, they couldn’t work from home like others, and they kept the country going. We shouldn’t forget these individuals now because they need support, both physically and mentally and in terms of the remuneration they receive. We have to ensure they can carry on doing what they’re doing within our society but can comfortably have their lives and pay their bills.”
However, in order to for this to happen, change at policy level is required and action is needed to change the narrative around care and raise its status in society.
Appealing to the government, Zeenat said: “Since the acute phase of the pandemic has ended and routine health services have started to resume, we as an organisation have seen quite a huge increase in referrals. But staffing does restrict us, so we need some government support to help with that, be it through relaxing visa requirements for the industry or implementing some other measures to try to attract more social care staff.
“There also needs to be some serious change in the understanding and valuing of social care. Social care is the frontline, it is the one that prevents longer term situations where people end up hospitalised for long periods of time and people at high levels need to acknowledge this. Ministers and local authorities also need to ensure that the sector is adequately funded so that we can pay staff what they deserve to keep delivering the amazing care that they do. Right now, they are totally undervalued and not really given that respect that they deserve.”
Image provided by APDA
