Changes still needed to improve North Yorkshire social care staffing
The situation's been described like a 'leaky bucket which needs urgent repair'
We are hearing how a lot of changes are still needed with social care to address staffing issues on the Yorkshire Coast.
A report says in Yorkshire and Humber, there were 11,000 vacancies on any given day in 2022/23. This was a vacancy rate of 8%. The region’s vacancy rate for 2022/23 was lower than the national average.
There were 159,000 filled posts in the region.
The region’s turnover rate was 29.9%, which was higher than the national average.
Tobyn Dickinson, Chief Executive of the Mayfield Care Home in Whitby, said: "The staff in the sector work long hours. It's often hard work and it's often not very well paid. It can be extremely fulfilling, which is the main reason why people do it, but they also need to be valued just like their counterparts in the NHS.
"Staff need to the paid well and be trained well so they're confident in their roles. That's not only the right thing to do for your staff but also residents because delivering care is about building relationships with your residents and understanding their wants and needs.
"A lot of changes are needed within the sector and that starts at an individual care home level. If you can put those building blocks in place and make the place an attractive place to work, that will then reduce the turnover within the sector and the number of people leaving the sector.
"The sector undoubtedly faces continued challenges. There's a huge amount that still needs to be done but I do see some encouraging signs that makes me optimistic about the future of the industry, and the capability of care homes to be able to provide our residents with the very best care."
Mike Padgham, Chair of the Independent Care Group in North Yorkshire and owner of Saint Cecilia's care homes in Scarborough, said: "It's a very dire situation and similiar to the rest of the country. It's not just care homes of course, it's people who provide care in their own homes who are suffering too, so without international recruitment we'd be in an even worse position than we are, and by 2035 we need over 400,000 more people in social care.
"I do see some slight improvement coming if we can make sure it's seen as a Government priority. I understand we can't do something with pay overnight but if social care is a priority then it should be done soon because if you support social care, it helps the NHS and this Government's priority is to reduce waiting lists."
The report
Almost 400,000 people left their jobs in social care in the year to March, with around of third of these exiting the sector altogether, according to a detailed 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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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".
Simon Bottery, of The King's Fund think tank, said it is "delighted to be working with Skills for Care and other organisations to help tackle the challenges across the adult social care sector by developing a long-term workforce strategy".