Staffing remains our biggest challenge

GETTING enough staff to fill our shifts and provide care remains the biggest challenge.

But that message simply isn’t getting through to politicians at Westminster who continue to show very little grasp of the problems facing us.

Figures from Skills for Care in July showed a slight improvement in recruitment, with one per cent growth and a fall in the number of daily vacancies from 164,000 to 152,000.

Some good news and proof that things are heading in the right direction, perhaps.

But those figures are just masking a huge problem and a recruitment timebomb that nobody seems to care about.

Whilst the improvements are welcome, they are nowhere near the sort of recruitment figures necessary if we are going to find the extra 445,000 social care staff we will need to cope with rapidly increasing demand for care, by 2035.

And those improved figures released by Skills for Care were bolstered by 70,000 staff recruited from overseas. Without them the figures wouldn’t be looking quite so rosy.

Evidence, were it needed, that overseas recruitment remains vital to the sector as we all fight on a daily basis to find the staff we need for care and nursing homes and domiciliary care.

When the New Conservatives called for overseas recruitment of care staff to be halted, as part of a reduction in immigration, they showed a complete lack of comprehension of the struggles facing social care providers.

They seemed to think that, at the drop of a hat, we could just end overseas recruitment and instantly find queues of willing new social care recruits on the corner of every street.

It was also telling that the Government didn’t come out and defend overseas recruitment after the New Conservatives made that suggestion.

The reality is we need to recruit, and we need to do it from home and abroad.

Overseas staff are contributing enormously, not just in the vital care they are providing but in the cultural diversity they add to our workplaces.

We need to keep recruiting them, as long as that recruitment doesn’t harm the supply of care staff needed in the countries they are coming to us from.

But most importantly we need reform in social care that will make working in the sector more attractive, wherever you come from.

We need to see a whole new way of thinking about social care staff, a new respect and recognition for

what they do.

And that needs to be reflected in a complete overhaul of their pay, terms and conditions.

In short, they need parity with their counterparts in the NHS – people who are doing for the most part very similar jobs but for significantly different reward.

The simple truth is that message isn’t really cutting through to the Government.

There was precious little mention of social care in the much-trumpeted ‘biggest NHS reform in its history’ announced some weeks ago.

The promise of more new recruits in the NHS will be welcomed by everyone, but the NHS long-term workforce plan will be flawed if its isn’t matched by similar attention to the social care workforce.

The two need each other and without a properly functioning and effective social care system to run alongside it, the NHS will be operating with one arm behind its back.

Only a couple of weeks ago, Age UK warned that 900,000 people a year were being admitted into hospital as an emergency because there is a lack of community care available to keep them healthy and well at home.

And at the other end of the chain, hundreds of thousands cannot be discharged from hospital again because there are no care packages available to look after them.

Headline-grabbing promises of more doctors and nurses – a bit like more bobbies on the beat – are designed to win votes and inspire confidence in a government.

But if you don’t tend to the other, less visible but just as vital care providers, you are betraying a vulnerable sector of the community who deserve better and that certainly won’t get my vote.