Vacancy rate in social care worst for 30 years, warns campaigner

“GENERATIONAL change” is needed to tackle the recruitment crisis facing social care, which has left providers fearing how they will cope with a second wave of coronavirus, a leading voice in the sector has said.

North Yorkshire care campaigner Mike Padgham, chairman of the Independent Care Group, said the vacancy rate in the sector was the worst he had seen in 30 years in social care.

He called for urgent action to ensure providers had the skilled, committed workers they needed.

Formal recognition under a National Care Service, with parity to the NHS, state registration for staff and a grading system would go some way to tackling the perception of social care as a job “anyone could do”, he said.

“Recruitment is an everyday occurrence for care providers and the problem has never been as acute as it is now,” Mr Padgham added.

“The recruitment crisis has meant staff face longer shifts to cope with staff shortages and face harder work. If more staff are needed now, how would we cope with a second wave?”

Latest figures from the King’s Fund published in May showed more than 122,000 care vacancies in England. Last week, social care staff were excluded from a new visa route into the UK post-Brexit that would allow fast-track visas for health workers.

Unison trade union said the “huge” vacancy rates in Yorkshire were due to “poverty wages, poor working conditions and undervaluing the skills of staff ”.

North Yorkshire County Council recruited 250 relief care workers to provide “additional resilience” in response to the pandemic.

The council’s director of health and adult services, Richard Webb, said rural locations such as Ryedale and Craven were some of the hardest areas in which to recruit, with demand outstripping the number of workers.

A long-term solution from the Government and an increase in funding was essential to enable it to make care roles more attractive and competitive.