Foreword
We all want to live in the place we call home, with the people and things that we love, in communities where we look out for one another, doing the things that matter to us.
Partners have come together across adult social care to develop this Workforce Strategy because social care is important for all of us. It is important to the 10 million people it impacts (including those who draw on paid and unpaid care, the workforce and unpaid carers).1 It is important for the effective functioning of the NHS. It is important for our economy and contributes almost £60 billion to the economy in England every year - much more than the £28.4 billion cost of social care in England.
And the workforce is central to social care.
All of us rely on the people who work in social care with the right values2 to provide the care and support that we need, often at critical times in our lives. The commitment, care, skill and kindness that people working in social care show is visible every day to the people who draw on social care and their families, but it is not always as well understood or recognised as it deserves to be. Through 不良研究所’s Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set3, we know that this results in capacity gaps, with 131,000 vacancies in 2023-24 and more than a quarter of people leaving their jobs in social care each year.
We also know from the data that we are likely to need an extra 540,000 posts in adult social care by 2040 if we look at changing demographics. Added to the vacancies that we have today, we could need more than 650,000 more people working in adult social care. This is a wonderful opportunity for hundreds of thousands of people to work in excellent roles – we have to make sure they are excellent.
And it is not just numbers – our needs are changing too. More of us are expected to have dementia in the future, mental ill-health, multiple health issues - and more people with learning disability and autism are living into old age.
Partners in the Workforce Strategy have come together now because this is urgent. We must change things to make sure that, over the next 15 years, there are enough people working in social care with the right training, skills, qualifications and pay to meet the changing and increasing needs of our population - and that those people are valued in their roles. Making social care more attractive as a place to work in an increasingly competitive global labour market is going to be even more important in the future.4 5 That is why this Strategy is focusing on the changing shape of care, the changing shape of education and the changing shape of work – all of these need to be considered together.
This workforce strategy, even if implemented in full, needs to be accompanied by transformation in social care. This means more and better prevention, more of a focus on transforming social care through new models, science and technology. We have choices to make as a society about the degree to which we support people so that their lives are “healthy, independent and enjoyable” for as long as possible.6
This is the backdrop against which we write this Strategy. There is an impetus for change that cannot wait, and we need to build on the work already started, including the planned investment in support to develop the workforce in the White Paper People at the Heart of Care – adult social care reform7, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) Roadmap8, the Church of England’s Reimagining Care Commission9 and A National Care Service for All by the Fabian Society.10
This Strategy is not intended to be a shopping list from the sector to the Government. There are some areas where we can only make progress with the help of central government mandate or investment - but there is also a strong commitment from all the organisations represented in the Steering Group to work together to make change happen. We have coalesced to deliver this vision and Strategy and the same unity of purpose will be needed to deliver the Strategy. We look forward to working with the Government on the next phase and the adoption and implementation of this Strategy.
The exact cost of the Workforce Strategy depends on how ambitious we are, the order we tackle recommendations, and how well we implement them. We have prioritised costing ‘big-ticket items’ and assume existing workforce development budgets will cover the rest.
We need a relationship between the social care sector and government, founded on mutual respect and a desire to improve outcomes for people drawing on services and the 1.6m people working in the sector. In social care, where no one body owns all the levers, uniting around this shared vision and Strategy becomes even more important.
This Workforce Strategy seeks to strike a balance between urgency and hope. It acknowledges the challenges but focuses on building a better future for social care. We owe it to people being supported today and to future generations who will draw on social care to get this right.
Professor Oonagh Smyth and Sir David Pearson.
Co-chairs of the Workforce Strategy Steering Group.