Last Updated on November 18, 2016

A new report from the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) discusses how the sector could respond to economic and political change to develop the future social care workforce. It is well recognised that more care workers are needed to meet the care and support needs of the future.

Care workers: building the future social care workforce from SCIE looks at three hypothetical future scenarios, and how the sector might respond to the challenges and opportunities those scenarios offer in relation to recruiting, training and retaining care workers.

The report was based on discussions with key stakeholders and forms part of a wider research project supported by JP Morgan Chase Foundation. It suggests that the following actions could attract more skilled care workers – whatever economic or political scenario the sector may face:

• Change the brand and language of care and support: Terms like ‘social care worker’ may no longer best describe the complexity of the role.
• Develop and promote portfolio careers, with more flexibility and opportunities that reflect people’s lifestyles (e.g. returning to work after bringing up families).
• Attract care workers from outside the UK, especially if Brexit leads to a fall in EU workers. This could be done in partnership with the NHS.
• Co-ordinate local recruitment across health, care and related areas such as housing within specific areas – such as Sustainability and Transformation Plan areas.
• Introduce user-led training, which focuses on the values that are important within social care. A new nationally-sponsored, but locally-managed, training programme, led and delivered by people who use services, may be a useful approach.

Speaking about the issue, SCIE Chief Executive, Tony Hunter said, 'Care workers perform one of the most important roles in our society – and the reality is we are going to need a lot more of them in the future. We need to be ready to respond to the opportunities and challenges that major changes – such as a reduction in supply of care workers – may present. Stakeholders, including Skills for Care, who attended a recent SCIE event identified the need to be more flexible about career pathways – so long as we attract the right people, with the right values. We will continue to work with sector leaders to develop and share potential approaches. We are also exploring how we can develop a programme of user-led recruitment and training with partners.'

The paper will be accompanied by a series of blogs from care providers who are developing innovative ways to manage workforce challenges.

SCIE's report follows Skills for Care's State of the adult social care sector and workforce in England, 2016 that was published in September.