Responding to the Skills for Care State of Adult Social Care
workforce report, Sarah Woolnough, Chief Executive of The King's
Fund, said:
'This report points to the scale of the challenge the Prime
Minister will face in trying to build his ambition of a National
Care Service and a sustainable workforce.
'Vacancies may be falling but they remain above the national
average for other sectors, and it is due significantly to
international recruitment plugging the gaps. With the closure of
overseas recruitment for social care workers, there remains a
serious challenge to social care if recruitment of British
nationals does not rise to compensate for it.
'These issues will likely be further exacerbated by our ageing
population. The report states that the population aged 65 and
over is expected to grow by 24% to 14.1 million by 2040. It goes
on to state that to increase the size of the workforce at the
same rate would require an additional 410,000 care workers in the
next 14 years.
'This should bring into sharp focus the urgent need for
improvements in recruitment and retention, particularly for
younger workers since 1824-year-olds make up only 7% of the
social care workforce. They could be an important source of new
recruits, but our previous work has shown younger people often
have a poor experience within the sector. We heard about some
appalling treatment of young care workers on the basis of their
age.
Career development also matters. The Prime Minister has spoken
passionately about the need to end 'poverty pay' for care workers
but to attract long term retention, including of younger workers,
alongside the Fair Pay Agreement needs to be the provision of
viable, long-term career paths.
There also needs to be consideration given to how to best use
technology and changes in service patterns to most effectively
use the care workers that the sector is able to recruit.
Andy and the government will need to
look at all these options, alongside how a future system may
operate to facilitate this including our proposals, if a
National Care Service will be able to stand the test of our
ageing population.'
ENDS
Notes to Editors:
King's Fund's recently published social care reform policy
proposals: Equal Access: A Fairer
System Of Social Care Support For England | The King's Fund.
King's Fund's previous work on young people and the social care
workforce: Young people in the adult
social care workforce | The King's Fund.
