18/07/2024 Workforce strategy is vital for the future of social care
For the first time ever, the adult social care sector has come together to develop a workforce strategy that is badly needed. Our Chair Melanie Weatherley MBE was involved in its creation and welcomes its launch.
Published today by Skills for Care, the Adult Social Care Workforce Strategy focuses on the next 15 years and has three key themes closely aligned to the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan: Attract and Retain, Train and Transform.
We welcome the launch of this strategy, which is vital if we are to tackle the adult social care crisis in the UK.
I enjoyed being part of the group that developed the strategy, and I’m looking forward to supporting its implementation.
Over the next 15 years we need one million more staff, but care workers are among the lowest paid staff in the UK.
Our priority must be to invest in our essential workforce and to recruit, train and retain new staff – including more young people and more men.
We are supportive of the strategy in general, but in my opinion the question of registration does not go far enough. Our senior staff should be registered in recognition of their role, and this fits absolutely with the public protection element of registration. I recognise that this is not a universally held view, but I hope that we can reach a consensus as we move through implementation.
Key points from the strategy:
- We are living for longer, and the number of people aged over 65 is expected to grow by almost a third in the next decade. This means we may need 540,000 new social care posts by 2040.
- The number of people aged 18 to 64 with a learning disability, mental health need or physical disability is also projected to increase over this period. By the time a person is aged 75, they are 60% more likely to possess two or more significant conditions. This figure increases to 75% for those between the ages of 85 and 89 years old.
- We are in a globally competitive labour market. Countries we currently recruit from will need to keep more of their own workers – and we may face international competition for our own workers.
- We cannot currently attract or keep enough people. In 2023-24, there were 131,000 vacancies on any given day – a vacancy rate of 8.3%, which was around three times the average for the economy. Over a quarter of people leave their jobs in care each year and around a third of them leave the sector altogether. 29% of our workforce – around 440,000 people – are over 55 and could retire in the next decade. Simply put, we don’t have enough people in adult social care today and we are going to need more tomorrow.