Our colleagues featured on BBC Newsnight

Community Integrated Care’s Chief People Officer, Teresa Exelby, and Regional Manager in the North West, Caroline Broughall, featured on BBC Two’s Newsnight programme to discuss current challenges in the social care sector.

Reporting on the recruitment and retention crisis in the social care sector, the programme highlighted how upcoming legislation around mandatory vaccinations will affect this even further. Reports state that the percentage of staff in care homes have received two vaccine doses is 87.2% as of 7th October. The Government’s own projections suggest that 7% of the workforce will not be double vaccinated by the required deadline – that’s 40,000 new vacancies on top of the 112,000 current vacancies across the sector.

Speaking with Newsnight’s Policy Editor, Lewis Goodall, Teresa and Caroline explored these issues in further depth.

Standing up for social care workers across the UK, Teresa said, “The Government have said that in three years’ time, a portion of the National Insurance increase will come to social care. We have a crisis now – today. Support Workers should be paid at least £12.60 per hour but instead they’re on minimum wage. We can’t wait 3 years for Government reform.”

Caroline spoke first-hand about the current recruitment crisis in the sector. She shared her experience as a manager of 17 services across Stockport and Halton, and the struggle that services across the country face, trying to fill vacancies for frontline care and support roles.

Reflecting on the challenges she has faced, Caroline said, “Recruitment is really challenging at the moment. I currently have vacancies that I’m checking each week and we just have no applicants for them at all. It involves asking my dedicated staff to work overtime that have maybe already worked six days in a row… but there’s only so long we can rely on that for, it’s not sustainable.”

Find out more and watch the full interview here.