Nearly a quarter of social care beds empty in Dorset due to staff shortages and rising costs
That's more than 700 spaces
A report to Dorset Council in September said that 22 per cent of all social care beds in the county are currently empty, more than 700 spaces.
Many are not in use because care home owners cannot find enough staff to operate them, or because they cannot afford to re-open sections of homes they had already mothballed to help defer rapidly rising costs.
It has been estimated that around a third of all social care staff leave each year for other jobs with problems in recruiting accelerating by the rising cost of travel to and from work and many foreign workers having returned home.
Skills for Care, the industry training body, suggests that in Dorset another 3,600 care workers will be needed by 2035 to meet rising demand.
Dorset Council has been able to offered some help to the sector with an uplift in contract payments and help with recruiting and training – although with limited success.
Dorset currently has around 3,500 social care beds – 54 per cent of them being used by people who self-fund their own care; 24per cent contracted by Dorset Council and 22per cent vacant.