‘Change or face a crisis’

A CARE specialist is urging Wokingham Borough Council to find technical solutions to support its vulnerable residents.

According to Netli, “radical changes” need to be made when planning and recruiting social care workers in the borough – or it will face an “impending care crisis”.

Stephen Wilson, CEO and co-founder of Netli (pictured), said the country’s care sector is not growing fast enough to keep up with demand caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

“People are already being denied virtual care,” he said. “But that position is only going to get worse if we don’t change the failed ways of the past and look to digital technology to sort out this workforce problem.”

The care specialist is now planning to propose a new way of supporting local care services to Wokingham Borough Council.

It wants to collect workforce data from local care providers and make this information available to the council, to help it identify risks and threats to the industry when planning for the future.

“Our proposal will enable local authorities like Wokingham Borough Council, and those across the country, to gather and access valuable data which will help them understand how to better manage the planning, recruitment and retention of social care staff,” Mr Wilson explained.

“Having continual access to real-time workforce data, combined with other integrated workforce tools we have devised will help to attract applicants to the care sector, improve staff retention and build upon care as a career, and mitigate the risk of provider failure, lost revenue and unmet needs.”

He said the pandemic has “shone a light” on the importance of good social care.

Netli is now in the process of contacting all local authorities in England in a bid to get the whole country turning to tech to manage the care sector.