Care analysis: The need to embrace disruption – Demand: Care workforce wellbeing

Healthier Working Lives is at the nexus of change in the sector – stimulating the rethinking of policy to support demand side working practice whilst highlighting innovative solutions that if adopted, will improve wellbeing for care workers and patients alike.

Let’s start with the demand side of care providers.

1) Health and Social Care Workforce: Wellbeing, Integration and Sustainability 2023 conference

Organised by Care England, Future Care Capital, and Talent for Care, the conference brought together representatives from the two sectors to discuss how to create a sustainable workforce. 

The scale of the problem facing the NHS and social care is daunting and there isn’t enough staff to meet demand. By the early 2030s, an extra half a million jobs in social care will be needed and the conference identified that the recruitment and retention crisis can be addressed by thinking differently.

Thinking imaginatively

There is a need to think more imaginatively about how to bring staff into the sectors. Martin Green, CEO of Care England, cited the many disabled people who could make a huge contribution to social care.

Thinking multi-year funding

The number one item on the wish-list is ‘multiyear funding’.

Thinking user

Martin Green said that most citizens have no interest in whether a particular service is provided by health or social care, and his vision was that staff should be able to move seamlessly between the two systems.

Thinking positively

Martin Green also argued that the current regulatory system was:

2) Age UK: The State of Health and Care of Older People in England 2023

The Age UK report published in July documents how the UK’s health and care system is struggling, and too often failing, to meet the needs of a growing older population.

Age UK is calling for a switch away from the current over-reliance on acute hospital-based care, towards a laser focus on prevention and early intervention to enable older people to stay fit and well in their own homes, and in care homes.

As the population grows and ages, rising demand for treatment, care and support, plus increasingly complex needs, are putting further pressure on the health and social care system.

The Health and Social Care Committee estimated an additional £7 billion per year was required by 2023/24, which it described as a:

In their 2022 Spring Survey, 17% of Directors of Adult Social Services reported that reducing the number of people in receipt of care was important or very important for them to achieve necessary savings in 2022/23, up from 8% in 2021/22.

Spending on adult social care has increased in recent years. However, this has not translated into more care for older people. Between 2017/18 and 2020/21, more than 36,000 fewer older people were receiving long-term care from their local authority. This is set in the wider context of existing under-provision and an increase in our older population.

Source: Age UK State of health and care of older people in England 2023

It is sadly unsurprising that an estimated 1.6 million people aged 65+ have unmet needs for care and support, including hundreds of thousands of people who are unable to complete three or more ADLs and receive no help, or help that does not meet their needs. It shows that an alarming percentage of people are either not receiving any help with basic tasks or they are receiving help that does not meet their needs.