Adults Social Care Recruitment mini series - 1. Why the problem?
If our workforce really are our most important asset in social care, it’s time for a rethink. You can’t have failed to hear about the crisis in social care and the large number of vacancies that are exacerbating pressures in the already overstretched sector. I’m excited this week to introduce my new blog mini-series, a collaboration with Andrew Burridge, NWADASS, where I’m going to be examining why there’s a problem in the first place and providing some practical advice and solutions for changes we can make right now, as well as in the longer term, to recruit and retain more of the right people to work in social care.
I’m going to start by putting my biases right out there on the table from the get go. I’ve worked in and alongside social care for many years and in my opinion, people who work in social care are some of the best people you could possibly hope to meet. They genuinely care about people, they’re motivated to make a difference to peoples’ lives, they’re driven by values like compassion, kindness and positivity that make them a pleasure to be around and they’re true grafters. So that being the case, why is it that social care is experiencing such a challenge in recruiting and retaining staff?
In this, the first of the new blog mini-series, I’m going to get under the skin of the reasons for the current recruitment and retention pressures. I keep hearing in the media that it’s about pay. Pay is absolutely an issue. Many carers are paid minimum wage and some have no guarantee of a minimum number of hours a week. But, if we think pay alone will solve the problem, we’re mistaken. It’s much more complex than that. And with that complexity comes more opportunity to try different things that will make a difference while we’re waiting and hoping for the social care budget to be sorted.
Many providers are funded by local authorities who have had social care budgets cut for many years now through austerity. This has meant commissioners have had to strip back to the bone and require the tightest of margins from providers. We all know that the tightest of margins in turn means providers have to cut back unless they are able to supplement local authority commissioned care with private care. It’s a very competitive employment market out there and unless employers can be the best, people will simply vote with their feet and go and work elsewhere. It’s now a reality that someone can leave a job on a Friday and walk into a new job by the following week. Being the best takes capacity - capacity to manage effectively, to supervise and support staff, to give people the time to access training and development that improves their skills and practice, to get your head up out of the operational hamster wheel and think about how to do things differently. So, budget pressures on local authorities have a very real impact on the quality of care and the experience of the workforce. This is why investment in social care is so very crucial.
Investment is essential
The impact of many years of cuts to social care budgets has far reaching impacts on the quality of care
The B word, Brexit. Interestingly what I’m hearing from social care providers is that they haven’t experienced lots of staff leaving directly as a result of Brexit but more as a knock on effect. As people have left jobs in other sectors such as hospitality, this has opened up new opportunities that tempt social care workers across, especially where pay is better. This is of particular pertinence at the moment because of the toll that the pandemic has taken on the social care workforce. Staff already exhausted from continuing to provide care throughout the pandemic, covering for colleagues who got ill or had to isolate, not to mention managing the emotional impact of living through a pandemic and all that brings, are leaving social care because they feel under-valued and burnt out. It’s so important that we think carefully about how we show that we value our social care workforce and all that they do, how we enable them to take care of their well-being and how we find time and space for rest, reflection and recuperation. So challenging when the sector is creaking but if we don’t find ways to do this, we’ll see more people leave.
We Value You
We need to do more to show our social care workforce how much they are valued
Another reason that social care is experiencing recruitment and retention challenges is that staff are moving across to the NHS. Social Care shares very similar values with the NHS, the NHS is our friend and our partner. We are co-dependent on each other. Who doesn’t love the NHS but social care has just as vital a role to play in enabling people to have happy, healthy lives. There’s not the same positive brand to celebrate social care. Social care feels like the poor relation and staff just don’t get the same public recognition as people working in the NHS do. Alongside this, as the NHS invests in new more-community facing roles like Community Navigators and Social Prescribers, staff from social care are prime applicants with oodles of relevant experience. And why wouldn’t they move - better pay, better terms and conditions and the chance to work for an organisation that is loved by the nation. Add into the mix the fact that from November care workers will be mandated in law to be vaccinated from covid whereas NHS staff will not (although the Government are currently out to consultation on whether vaccinations should be mandatory for NHS workers too) and the c10% of the social care workforce who have yet to be vaccinated, and for some, you’ve got a pretty compelling case for moving to the NHS. I’m hearing from providers that this is the reality of what they are experiencing on the ground.
Ultimately we have to do what we can with the resources we have available to us. If we wait for someone else to resolve these challenges, the reality is they’ll get worse. The more positive news is that there are some really practical actions we can take that will give us the best chance of recruiting and retaining fabulous people in the social care sector and the rest of this series will focus in on these. We’re starting next time with making the case for changing the narrative so that we collectively and consistently reframe social care for the wonderful opportunity it is to make a difference to people's lives every day.
Andrew’s Insights:
As a Programme Manager for NW ADASS I recognise the situation described by Kath. During the Summer NW ADASS responded to the developing market and workforce pressures by creating a weekly Task and Finish Group to explore support for our 23 local authorities. The sector is currently experiencing the combination of significant pressures – including the ongoing stress and strain of working through a pandemic, an increase in homecare demand, competition for labour with local authorities reporting 10% of the homecare workforce leaving in the last three months, and concerns of staff leaving the sector due to their choice to refuse vaccination. Councils, providers and families are working extremely hard and exploring all options.
In recent weeks we’ve been developed a NW regional recruitment campaign which we are excited to launch at the end of October. In addition to hopefully helping to attract young people into adult social care our work with Kath and the campaign are highlighting a number of themes which will inform our plans under our Care 2030 Future Workforce Strategy.
We need to frame careers in adult social care as a great choice for people with the right values. Adult social care is incredibly rewarding and will develop essential skills around empathy, communication and creativity.
We continue to hear reports of the stress and pressure that care workers face. We need to support the current workforce in order to retain the fantastic care workers (and informal carers) that so many people rely upon.
Pay is clearly a limiting factor and as a sector government, local authorities, providers need to advocate for and secure greater pay. But as Kath describes, pay is not the only factor.
The solution has to be in partnership with people, providers, and partners – especially the NHS for the reason Kath describes but also housing and the community voluntary sector.
As Kath suggests, our Future Workforce Board is up for the challenge of changing the narrative and we’ll be exploring the opportunity in our next blog.
