Social care in 2018: time to think about the future workforce
This is a long but worth quoting in full report about the latest thinking and activities around the social care workforce, which is a big issue in rural communities. It tells us:
The government’s forthcoming green paper on care and support for older people, and the parallel workstream on working age adults, is an opportunity for us to recognise the work of 1.45 million adult social care workers across England – and to really think about what the future workforce will look like.
One of Skills for Care’s priorities in 2018 is working with employers and other partners to make a strong submission to the green paper, so we ensure that recruitment and retention issues, and the learning and development needs of the workforce, are integral to the discussion.
The much-anticipated green paper on social care for older people is set to be published by the summer of 2018 – although, having been promised before last year’s general election, the sector had been hoping the paper would appear much sooner.
It was also hoped that the green paper would address needs across the entire adult social care sector. Instead, the paper will be limited to the government’s plans for improving care and support for older people and tackling the challenges presented by an ageing population.
There will be a ‘parallel work stream on working age disabled adults’, but some are concerned this report will focus on getting more disabled people into work.
The government has invited a number of people to advise on the paper, including Paul Burstow, chair of the Social Care Institute for Excellence; Sir Andrew Dilnot, the former chair of the Commission on the Funding of Care and Support; and Caroline Abrahams, charity director of Age UK. However, no user or care worker representatives have been invited to take part in consultations.
The proposals set out in the paper will build on the additional £2bn the government has provided to meet social care needs, reduce pressures on NHS services and stabilise the social care provider market over the next three years. Once published, the paper will be subject to a full public consultation.
I have been encouraged that we can do this by the emphasis on workforce in the Lords select committee report on the long-term sustainability of the NHS and adult social care (pdf), and the commons communities and local government select committee report into adult social care (pdf). Both these reports recognised that a well-led, skilled, knowledgeable and valued workforce is central to our aspirations for high quality care and support services.
We will continue to grow our registered manager networks as we know that strong and well-supported leaders are key to developing high quality services. It can be a lonely place being a care manager – but these networks offer a place for them to share experiences and ideas: 74% of care managers say they feel more confident in their roles after using resources and suggestions from other managers.
Apprentices are a real success story in adult social care: 99,220 have started in the past year alone.
In 2018 we would like to see increased take-up of the new apprenticeship standards, which set out what an apprentice will be doing and the skills required of them. The standards for adult care workers and lead adult care workers were launched in the last 12 months and have already led to the recruitment of new apprentices. Further higher level standards are being introduced for lead practitioners and leaders in adult care. While they are passing through the government approval process, we will continue to administer the established and most popular higher apprenticeship framework in the economy, care leadership and management.
We are also looking forward to the findings of the health select committee nursing inquiry, which I gave evidence to highlighting the difficulties we face recruiting enough nurses to support people in the care sector with complex needs –and how we might address that. It’s important that we hear the voice of nursing home providers, who employ around 43,000 nurses across England, as making sure they can find nursing staff is central to our aspirations for high quality care and support.