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Healthier Working Lives ;

Healthier working lives for the care workforce insights

The Healthier working lives team is acting to tackle a crisis facing care workers and organisations. The adult social care sector is at a tipping point. A recurring set of issues have been rendered more intense by COVID and Brexit regulations. Demoralised experienced professionals are leaving in droves, many employees are chronically underpaid and business models are broken. The crisis is reflected in unusually high levels of workforce turnover and vacancy rates.

Healthier working lives is tackling head on the need for significant practical change in the care sector at the sharp end of service delivery. The primary goal is to generate and support ideas, through the co-design and adoption of innovative products and services that address challenges in the recruitment, retention and the health and well-being of older workers, particularly in the growing residential and retirement village care sectors.

The aims of the Healthier working lives programme are to:

  • identify ways to promote healthier working lives and ageing for older care workers – developing their careers, enhancing user continuity and promoting everyone’s wellbeing.
  • transform aspects of the care sector workforce experience and culture – making their services more agile, innovative and accessible.
  • attract and encourage professional, respected and confident workers and improve workforce planning and support.

If you are an innovator, business leader or entrepreneur working, or seeking to become involved with the care sector, join the Healthier working lives campaign through our registration form or contact dilesh.shah@kcl.ac.uk

Stories

People

Sophie Bowlby

Sophie Bowlby

Professor Sophie Bowlby is Co-Chair of the Healthier Working Lives Knowledge Network and Visiting Research fellow, University of Reading. She is a geographer with longstanding interests in physical and social access to places, people and services. Her recent research addresses informal care and use of old and new technologies for social contact.

Stella Chan

Stella Chan

Stella Chan is Healthier Working Lives Research co-investigator and Co-Investigator Charlie Waller Chair in Evidence Based Psychological Treatment, University of Reading. Stella is a clinical psychologist and her work has a strong focus on mental health and wellbeing, in particular using citizen science co-production methodology.

Stephen Coleman

Stephen Coleman

Stephen Coleman OBE is Co-Chair of the Healthier Working Lives Knowledge Network, and CEO and cofounder of CodeBase. He has experience in supporting tech start-ups, building tech ecosystems and applying tech start-up thinking to incumbent organisations.

Caroline Deane

Caroline Deane

Caroline Deane is Healthier Working Lives care lead and Workforce Policy and Practice Lead, Scottish Care. In her role at Scottish Care (representing over 400 care providers), she aims to ensure that care provider's voice is heard by key social care stakeholders making policy decisions that impact their sector.

Andrew Fletcher

Andrew Fletcher

Andrew Fletcher is the Healthier Working Lives ethnographic research lead. Andrew has conducted participatory ethnographic research in care institutions and analysed policy tensions around work and care in the Scottish context. He also has a keen interest in arts and health, in particular the role of music in dementia care.

Julian Grice

Julian Grice

Julian Grice is Healthier Working Lives Enterprise and Design lead and Co-founder Design Age Accelerator and Healthy Ageing by Design, Creative Venue. Julian is a design and enterprise growth consultant with 40 years industry experience. He has advised the healthy ageing challenge on design strategy including the Design for Ageing enterprise competition, co-founded the Design Age Accelerator and co-created the Design for Growth programme for the Centre for Ageing Better.

Sarah Kettley

Sarah Kettley

Sarah Kettley is Healthier Working Lives Co-design research lead and Chair of Material and Design Innovation and Co-Chair of the RAFT research group at Edinburgh College of Art. Her interests in the ageing and wider design arena include research-through-design, wearable technologies, tangible interfaces, participatory service design, the Person-Centred Approach as an ethical participatory design framework, and design for mental health and wellbeing.

Sue Lewis

Sue Lewis

Dr Sue Lewis is Healthier Working Lives lead research investigator and Senior Research Fellow with the Advanced Care Research Centre and lead its project, Understanding Care Transitions. Her background is in the anthropology of community health, which has always involved working collaboratively with research participants.

John Mathers

John Mathers

John Mathers is Healthier Working Lives Enterprise and Design lead, and Co-founder Design Age Accelerator and Healthy Ageing by Design, Creative Venue. He has consulted in the brand, design and creative industries for over 40 years. More recently he has focused on enterprise, supporting the start-up community, Chairing the British Design Fund and co-founded an accelerator focused on the use of design in the healthy ageing market.

Linda McKie

Linda McKie

Professor Linda McKie is the project's Principal Investigator and Executive Dean at the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy. She has worked for 30 years across third, public and academic sectors researching working life, with a focus upon the over 50s, and the interweaving of gender, race, work, health, and care.

Dilesh Shah

Dilesh Shah

Dilesh Shah is the Research Projects Manager. Dilesh works closely with the Principal Investigator of the Healthier Working Lives Project and oversees this project. He also supports the academics by leading on the financial, administrative and overall management.

Luis Soares

Luis Soares

Luis Soares is Healthier Working Lives Research Associate. He has professional and interdisciplinary academic experience spanning Science, Technology and Innovation, and Media and Communication studies. He has worked at the Institute for Design Informatics caring out research in the field of HCI and using both participatory and co-design methods to assist the development of new products and services.

Bettina Zenz

Bettina Zenz

Bettina Zenz is Research Officer in the Healthier Working Lives Workforce team. Bettina is a skilled researcher with a strong interest in ethnographic and qualitative approaches to conducting research.