Skills for Care published the Workforce Strategy in July to improve the quality and job roles in the social care. What key points can providers learn from the report and what are the next steps? Dr Jane Brightman, Director of Workforce Strategy at Skills for Care, shares her exclusive analysis and latest reflections with UK Care Week readers.

UK Care Week: What has the response been to the Workforce Strategy?

Dr Jane Brightman: The response has been overwhelmingly positive across the sector. On launch day there were 150 attendees for the face-to-face event and over 800 people attended the online livestream. The buzz in the room on the day was fantastic.

We have shared some of the supporting quotes from the sector on the microsite, scroll to the bottom of the page: Strategy Steering Group (skillsforcare.org.uk)

This Workforce Strategy was developed by Skills for Care in collaboration with the entire adult social care sector, along with colleagues from health and education. It reflects the input of thousands of stakeholders and is truly a sector-owned strategy. We are incredibly grateful to everyone who contributed their time and insights.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has been a ‘participant and supporter’ of the development of this Strategy. 

The Workforce Strategy Steering Group has been co-chaired by Professor Oonagh Smyth and Sir David Pearson, supported by a dedicated and bold Steering Group can be found on the Skills for Care website.

Additionally, we commissioned a report from the Kings Fund on stakeholders’ expectations of the adult social care workforce over the next 15 years and formed seven Expert Working Groups to develop the recommendations. A small sub-group focused on service assumptions for adult social care over the next 15 years and developed a supporting report. We held a series of roundtables to engage with the sector, including people drawing on care and support, care workers, and registered managers, while also engaging with networks, attending conferences, and participating in events across England. Alma Economics was commissioned to undertake the economic modelling, and a Research and Academic Panel supported the evidence collection using workforce data gathered by Skills for Care.

UK Care Week: At time of speaking (August 2024) are you able to provide a couple of latest stats relating to the care workforce, including homecare and a comment on trends in 2024

Dr Jane Brightman: We know from the data that we are likely to need an extra 540,000 posts in adult social care by 2040 taking into account changing demographics.

In 2023-24, there were 131,000 vacancies on any given day – a vacancy rate of 8.3%, which is around three times the average for the economy. Over a quarter of people leave their jobs in care each year and around a third of them leave the sector altogether. 29% of our workforce – around 440,000 people – are over 55 and could retire in the next decade.

National Living Wage increases have squeezed pay differentials which does not encourage experienced workers to stay, meaning that there is an 8p/hour difference between new and experienced workers. This differential was 33p in March 2016.

Since 2017 there has been a 75% reduction in the numbers of people working in adult social care undertaking apprenticeships.

New research from the Homecare Association highlights that 6% of regular homecare contracts paid rates that didn't cover care worker direct costs. Just 7% of contracts had a fee increase that kept up with the 9.8% rise in the National Living Wage.

UK Care Week: Could you share a key point from the report on how we should be successfully achieving the key areas: 1) recruit, 2) retain, 3) train and 4) transform the social care workforce in the future?

Dr Jane Brightman: The recommendations and commitments are not simply a shopping list for the new government, they fall into three categories:

• Recommendations that require Government choice (including pay, the various options for which would cost the Treasury between £40million and £4.3 billion)

• Recommendations that will be led across the sector in partnership with the civil service

• Recommendations that should be funded and led by Government and the sector in partnership, which could be estimated from budgets from previous Government reform programmes but will depend on delivery infrastructure, including robust engagement channels.

Attract and Retain – We must attract new people into social care and keep them. Evidence shows the two most immediate recruitment levers in adult social care are ensuring that adult social care is competitive in local labour markets (this includes by paying more and having good quality roles) and international recruitment. We can do both things - recruit from abroad and improve the quality of social care roles - but if we do neither then immediate workforce capacity issues are likely to continue.

However, we also need to guard against only pulling these short-term levers for attraction. We have to continue to focus on recruiting the domestic workforce so that we have people in the areas we need them, and we need to do more to keep people. We know that pay and terms and conditions, including flexible employment policies, help to attract entrants into the workforce, but a mixture of factors helps people to stay and build a career in adult social care and we need to focus on these too.

Train - Everyone working in social care should have the chance to develop, learn and grow in their role. Learning and development supports good quality social care and retention. In this section we identified the priority actions needed to support the provision of quality learning and development including career development, apprenticeships, improving the supply-side of good quality training, funding for training and focused on regulated professionals and registered managers.

Transform - Transformation of the workforce is needed to ensure we can meet the needs of our ever-changing population. The following five areas have been prioritised within the Workforce Strategy:

• Legislation and mandate for workforce strategy

• Registration

• Better workforce planning

• Technology, data and AI

• Research and innovation

UK Care Week: What timeline is Skills for Care working to in terms of securing the funding and required support for the strategy? 

Dr Jane Brightman: We are not taking a moment to pause; we have spent the summer working with the Steering Group to shape plans for implementation across the sector and talking to the government. We are talking to ICS, local authorities and care providers across England and have a call out for people or organisations who would like to become Workforce Strategy Champions.

UK Care Week: What do you see as the biggest challenges on achieving what's been set out?

Dr Jane Brightman: Ensuring that the sector doesn’t feel overwhelmed, there’s lots to do and it is ambitious but it’s spread out over 15 years and if we all play our part, there is so much opportunity to transform.

Securing government investment in what are very economically challenging times, however we are clear that it is a partnership approach between the sector and government and the Workforce Strategy can lay the foundations for a future National Care Service as well as helping to meet Labour’s 5 missions.

UK Care Week: Are you able to tell us more about becoming a champion for the Workforce Strategy, how can social care providers get involved and what role will they play in the implementation of the strategy?  

Dr Jane Brightman: Launching the strategy was the first step, we now need to work together to ensure that it is implemented and delivered. We can only do that collectively as a sector, all of us as partners and doing this will ensure all of us feel the reward and benefits.

We are seeking volunteers who are interested in becoming Workforce Strategy Champions. You can be an individual or representing an organisation, with a passion or a stake in adult social care.

A Champion will actively support the Workforce Strategy, this could be on social media, promoting within your organisation or networks or including references to it in your internal or external communications.

Some opportunities include:

• Provide a case study for sharing on the strategy website

• Get involved in ‘task and finish’ groups, developing supporting resources

• Take part in presenting at events related to the strategy

• Showcase how you are actioning a specific recommendation and what you’ve learnt.

All will be an important part of bringing the strategy to life and making progress towards the ambitions it sets out for our sector.

Interest in becoming a Champion can be registered here: Implementation (skillsforcare.org.uk)

UK Care Week: Where can social care providers go for support, which other resources and training would you recommend on facing current workforce challenges? 

Dr Jane Brightman: The Workforce Strategy microsite has a supporting resources section and this will grow overtime with new resources and case studies: Supporting resources (skillsforcare.org.uk)

The Skills for Care website has a wealth of additional resources: Home - Skills for Care

 

Author bio

Dr Jane Brightman is the Director of Workforce Strategy at Skills for Care, and is leading on the development of the adult social care workforce strategy for England.

Jane has over 30 years of experience across the adult social care sector including frontline care, leadership, education, digital transformation and national policy.

For 10 years she was Director of a private training organisation specialising in adult social care delivery before going on to national roles supporting training and development in social care.

Jane spent two years at NHSX (now NHS Transformation Directorate) in the blended Digitising Social Care programme as Assistant Director, leading and delivering on the White Paper commitments.

Jane facilitates an online network of leaders in social care with over 8000 members. In 2022 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Arden University for services to social care.