In May, Skills for Care is focusing on recruitment, helping social care providers and organisations build and retain the best workforces possible. With the launch of the Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care in July 2024, and the publication of our most recent Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set (ASC-WDS) report in October 2024, there has never been a more important time to focus on our ability to attract staff and build cultures and workplaces that make people want to stay.
The Workforce Strategy rightfully dedicated an entire section to this topic – ‘Attract and retain’. It argued that we must attract new people into social care and keep them through a variety of short- and long-term solutions, ranging from pay and conditions to culture and wellbeing, if we are to address the ongoing challenges that our sector has faced with regards to workforce shortages.
Supporting the Workforce Strategy, our most recent data shows that while the sector saw growth in the workforce due to 105,000 international recruits joining in 2023/24, the number of British workers fell by 30,000 in the same period. The availability of international recruits is drastically declining in recent months, meaning staffing issues may be looming. Our projections show that 430,000 new posts may be required by 2035 based on current population growth, with this number increasing to 540,000 by 2040. Overall, by 2040 a total of 2.38 million adult social care posts would be needed, an increase of 29% from 2023/24.
One exciting Workforce Strategy recommendation which may help us tackle our recruitment and retention challenges is the development of the care-specific People Promise programme, which would aim to mirror the success of the NHS People Promise pilot. The pilot ran for 20 months from April 2022 and included 23 participating exemplar trusts. A recent evaluation showed 22 out of 23 exemplar trusts experienced a significant decrease in their all-staff monthly leaver rates. Leaver rates of exemplar trusts collectively fell by 11.8% more than non-exemplar trusts. This is equivalent to a reduction of 4,465 full-time equivalent leavers over the 20-month period.
The Workforce Strategy made calls for a similar programme to be piloted for social care, focused on improving pay, security of income, work-life balance and career development opportunities. So far, several integrated care systems across the country have begun work to open their People Promise pilots to those working in social care, with some regions having successfully selected participating care providers and organisations.
Other interesting recruitment and retention pilots are also taking their first steps. The National Care Forum has kicked off the care technologists’ pilot to test and roll out support for creating a new technology-focused role in social care. This pilot was inspired by a similar project run by the Glasgow School of Art and Scottish Care, whose pilot created care technologist roles to leverage social care technology. The project reached more than 600 people drawing on care and support, upskilled the workforce and attracted diverse talent.
Finally, we are seeing a definite uptick in terms of wellbeing initiatives across the sector, helping to make social care a more enjoyable sector to work in. This is a key step towards improving retention, as happier workplaces make staff more likely to remain in post. We have seen some brilliant examples of how this message can be pushed to the forefront, such as The Care Workers’ Charity hosting a focused wellbeing day during Professional Care Workers Week last September.
To read the Workforce Strategy’s ‘Attract and retain’ section, click here. You can also engage with this column below, leave a comment or join the conversation to share your thoughts.
Oonagh Smyth is Chief Executive Officer at Skills for Care. Email: [email protected] X: @skillsforcare