New Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care in England
A groundbreaking Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care in England, the first of its kind, has been published by Skills for Care. The strategy, which has been developed with senior stakeholders including the CQC, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Care Provider Alliance, the RCN, the Care Workers’ Charity, involved thousands of representatives from the social care sector including families, staff, providers, commissioners and innovators.
Purpose
The purpose of the strategy is to identify the needs of the workforce over the next 15 years and outline a plan to meet those needs. The need arises from alarming data in which Skills for Care estimates an extra 540,000 posts in adult social care are required by 2040. Coupled with more people having complex needs, including dementia, mental health, multiple health issues and people with learning disabilities who are living into old age, it is imperative to be ahead of the curve for the people that the sector supports, its communities and the wider economy.
An underlining theme throughout the strategy is the need to focus on recruitment and retention strategies. Health and social sector is globally a competitive labour market, which coupled with demographic changes around the world, countries where we currently recruit from will need to keep more of their own workers. Long term reliance on overseas workers may no longer be feasible, and in turn the UK may face international competition for our own workers.
Recommendations
The strategy outlines the case for change. It emphasises the need to attract, retain, and support skilled professionals to meet the growing demands of care and support services. Over 40 recommendations have been proposed, which include:
- Improving pay for staff including a plan to boost domestic recruitment.
- Creating a 10-year attraction plan targeting those from certain demographics which are not in the sector such as men, younger individuals and those with technical skills.
- Providing more support for employers and developing a national program to attract graduates and those who wish to change career.
- Creating a strategy for a People Promise for social care, as well as the development of retention pilot schemes and promoting workforce wellbeing and diversity.
- Implementing the Social Care Workforce Race Equality Standard as well as the promotion of ethical international recruitment.
Comment
If implemented in full, there would need to be a radical transformation of adult social care, although its success is dependant on how ambitious stakeholders are in adopting the recommendations. The CQC has already acknowledged it will support the strategy by using its role and remit to influence key changes. This might include a reconsideration of how it applies the new Single Assessment Framework and new Quality Statements linked to workforce wellbeing and equality, diversity and inclusion. Equally Skills for Care regularly provide extensive data about the workforce, its trends and a level of insight that many comparable sectors can only aspire to possess. It therefore becomes critical for providers to access that data and modelling to better understand and plan for changes.
Although some proposals can be implemented immediately, others will take longer to make an impact. A significant component to the success of the strategy will be whether it is adopted by the new Government and put on a statutory footing, as with the NHS workforce plan.
We were pleased to play a small part in the development of the strategy, facilitating the input of HR leaders in the sector through our Social Care HR Leaders Network.
