Featured in Skills for Care Workforce Strategy

In July, Skills for Care, the workforce development body for adult social care in England, launched its new Workforce Strategy – aiming to improve the quality of roles in adult social care, ensuring our sector has enough people, with the right skills, to deliver the best support possible to people who draw upon the sector.

To develop the strategy, Skills for Care have collaborated with a wide range of people and organisations, including the Care Quality Commission, care workers, employers, local authorities, Integrated Care Systems and those who draw on care and support. We were proud to see our charity’s Unfair To Care research referenced within the strategy, supporting the case for change and improvements for the future of social care.

Representatives from Community Integrated Care were delighted to attend the strategy launch event in London to learn further details about the plans, where there was real hope and anticipation in the room as the sector moves forward to deliver next steps.

Teresa Exelby, Chief People and Corporate Services Officer at Community Integrated Care, commented:

“The launch of Skills for Care’s new Workforce Strategy marks a landmark opportunity to change the future of social care for the better; for both those working within the sector and drawing upon its support.

It’s hugely positive that whilst the strategy focusses on how to attract and retain the very best talent, it also looks towards the future; providing recommendations on how we can train and transform our workforce to shift perceptions around the valuable work our sector delivers. Our revolutionary Learning & Development Programme for frontline colleagues, GROW, puts us ahead of the curve in many of these areas – including the blended use of technology and bite-size learning.

Of course, pay continues to be a defining issue, and our Unfair To Care data has been used in the strategy to outline the fundamental issue of parity of pay between our social care colleagues and those working within the NHS. Research from our report proves that social care workers undertake skilled, complex and accountable roles, equivalent to a Band 3 NHS worker, but are paid thousands of pounds a year less. As a charity, we strongly believe that parity of pay for care workers with their NHS equivalents is long overdue.

We know that Government must act urgently to put these recommendations into action. Evidenced even further with the release of Skills for Care’s new workforce data, highlighting that whilst vacancy rates are falling across social care, they remain stubbornly high – around three times the national average. We know it will take real political will to see these much-needed changes, and eagerly await the Government’s response.

We hope this strategy will be a turning point and look forward to working with Skills for Care and partners from across the sector to deliver its aims, which have the power to shape lasting positive change.”

You can read the full strategy here.