There are many issues at the heart of the current crisis in the social care sector. But perhaps the most crucial and long-lasting one is that of recruiting and retaining carers in the sector. The problems are myriad and complex.
But there are some simple steps that can be taken to start on the path to finding some real solutions to this most pressing of issues.
First and foremost, the social care sector and within it the role of the carer has an image problem. The image is not a good one. It is one of long hours, poor pay, and conditions for what is a demanding and challenging role. It is one we need to change and fast. Put simply it’s a matter of supply and demand. There is a huge number of vacancies for carers. And there is a lack of willing recruits.
We need to drill down and looks at the issues not only of the lack of new entrants to the care sector, but also why those with years of experience have left and do not appear willing to return. The reason for this would seem to be primarily economic in the first instance. Supermarkets and warehouses have raised their wages significantly in recent years providing salaries and working conditions that offer greater returns than the social care sector currently offers. Meanwhile rising petrol and diesel prices and the huge rise in the general cost of living have eroded carer wages. The issue of pay is an issue for individual employers and organisations of course. But it is an issue we ignore at our peril.
When it comes to recruiting new apprentices, the current system is underfunded with carer placements receiving less than many other roles. Efforts need to be made to redress this balance if new carers are to be trained and retrained. Every apprentice who leaves the process is a sunk cost from the social care budget.
Overall, changes need to be made to make the prospect of becoming a carer a more attractive option. For all the purported downsides, the role is a crucially important one and with all the challenges, come the benefits of being able to make a difference to a client’s quality of life not only on a day-to-day basis but for the long term.
Carers also need the chance to see the role as a career in which they can evolve and progress. By offering training to move into roles such as that of the equivalent of an Auxiliary Nurse, not only can they upskill but also move up the pay scale.
This has the added advantage of the private care sector being able to be more proactive and collaborative with the NHS, local authorities, and other stakeholders, to pick up some of the tasks which traditionally fall to NHS staff alleviating the need for unnecessary hospital visits, which can lead to bed-blocking in hospitals.
Only through offering a recognisable career path which offers real prospects and progression will the sector be able to rebuild and regain a reputation for being a place where people don’t feel they have to work for lack of other options, but want to work and feel they belong.
The sector needs to make a wholesale cultural shift that reinvigorates the vital role of a carer back to being one where they feel valued across the board. In doing so it will not only attract new entrants who will stay and build careers, but also hopefully bring back many of those who left the sector for various reasons.
Tinga Umera is managing director of Nexus Care Services
