Norfolk patient group calls for reform to adult social care sector
Almost 400,000 people left their job in social care in the year to March, according to an independent charity
A group representing patients across Norfolk is calling for adult social care to be treated better and under-go some reform.
It's after an annual report from an independent charity found that almost 400,000 people left their job in social care, in the year to March.
Around of third of these exiting the sector altogether, according to an annual report on the workforce which reveals a "leaky bucket" on staffing.
Skills for Care, which is the strategic workforce development and planning body for adult social care in England, said its projections suggest that in just over a decade from now, a quarter more posts in the sector will be needed.
In its annual State of the Adult Social Care Sector and Workforce in England report, published on Thursday, it said that equates to some 440,000 posts needed to keep in line with the projected number of people aged 65 and over in the population by 2035.
"An inevitable impact on demand for services"
Alex Stewart is from Healthwatch Norfolk:
"We could be talking to young people and saying there's more to being involved in this field, than being a doctor. You could be an allied health professional, for example.
"Some people aren't necessarily academically bright but are brilliant at dealing with all and any folk.
"Within 5 years, two out of every five people in Norfolk will be over the age of 65. That's phenomenally high when you consider that the population is between 900k and 1 million, here.
"It's going to have an inevitable impact on demand for services, as people grow older."
"People are now scrubbing around for any resources"
He told us how these numbers can be turned around - and how prior changes to the sector have proved divisive:
"The system has probably been under-funded by successive Governments for many years. People are now scrubbing around for any resources that they can get.
"The change from helping people do, to enabling has caused a certain amount of angst with social workers of a certain generation.
"Who were more used to doing some hands on intervention with families."
What are things looking like in our region?
Skills for Care found that in East England, there were 15,500 vacancies on any given day in 2022/23.
This was a vacancy rate of 10.1%. With the region’s vacancy rate for 2022/23 being higher than the national average.
There were 174,000 filled posts in the East.
The region’s turnover rate was 29.9%, which was higher than the national average.
What action's being taken?
Skills for Care said it is working with "a wide range of organisations and people who have a stake in social care" to develop a workforce strategy for the sector identifying what is needed over the next 15 years, complementing the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan which was published earlier this year.
The organisation said the plan will aim to ensure the sector has enough of the right people with the right skills and will help employers and commissioners with their workforce planning.
What did the wider report find?
Among its key findings were that an estimated 70,000 people arrived in the UK and started direct care-providing roles in the independent sector in the year to March, up from 20,000 the previous year.
The report noted that this was a "substantial increase in international recruitment" and came as employers relied more on international recruitment since care workers were placed on the Shortage Occupation List in February 2022.
It also said while care worker pay has increased at a faster rate since the introduction of the national living wage, there is very little difference in pay depending on experience.
What do the numbers say?
On average, care workers with five or more years of experience in the sector were paid just six pence (0.6%) more per hour than care workers with less than one year of experience, the report said.
Adult social care is estimated to bring £55.7 billion per year to the economy in England, up by 8.5% from 2021/22, and greater than the economic contribution of the accommodation and food service industries, Skills for Care said.
Its report stated: "Far from adult social care being a drain on resources, we are key to the economies of local communities and in economically deprived areas."
A report from Skills for Care in July had already noted that the workforce grew by 1% between April 2022 and March 2023, after shrinking for the first time on record the previous year, and that the vacancy rate fell to 9.9% - around 152,000 vacancies on any given day - from 10.6% the previous year.
Its latest report stated that the turnover rate across the sector was 28.3%, down slightly from 28.9% the previous year - meaning that around 390,000 people left their jobs.
Around a third of those people left the sector entirely.
In the latest financial year, the proportion of men working in the sector increased for the first time on record from 18% to 19%.
Just 8% of the workforce was aged under 25 - compared with 12% of the economically active population.
The report comes in the same week as the Government launched a recruitment campaign for the third year in a bid to help build the "vital workforce"."
"The challenges haven't gone away"
Skills for Care chief executive Oonagh Smyth welcomed the "green shoots for the sector" with the workforce having grown slightly and the vacancy rate down.
"But the challenges haven't gone away," she added.
"In particular, the fact that 390,000 people left their jobs in 2022/23 and around a third of them left the sector altogether shows that we have a leaky bucket that we urgently need to repair.
"We can't simply recruit our way out of our retention challenges. So, we need a comprehensive workforce strategy to ensure we can both attract and keep enough people with the right skills to support everyone who draws on care and support - and all of us who will draw on care and support in the future."
Both Care England, a representative body for independent adult social care providers, and the Health Foundation charity said while international recruitment is filling staff gaps, a new approach is needed.
"Depends on sufficient investment and sustained policy action"
Hugh Alderwick, director of policy at the Health Foundation, said international recruitment "is no replacement for the more fundamental policy action needed to improve pay and conditions for people working in social care".
While he described it as "encouraging" to see Skills for Care developing a new workforce strategy for social care, improving jobs in social care and growing the workforce over the long-term "depends on sufficient investment and sustained policy action from government".
A Government spokesperson insisted the "action we've taken is growing the social care workforce and filling vacancies, meaning there is more capacity in the social care system than last year" and said it is investing almost £2 billion over two years to help councils support the workforce