If anyone ever questioned the extent of the crisis in social care, this past few weeks you could not escape the terrifying truth. Two reports from the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee, a report from the Levelling Up Committee, updated workforce data from Skills for Care, plus a survey of NHS Leaders published by the NHS Confederation are all raising the alarm.

The ‘ravaged’ social care sector is experiencing the greatest workforce crisis in its history and this is having a devastating impact on quality of care, NHS waiting times and patient outcomes.

We are hearing from heartbroken care workers who feel they have no choice but to find better paid work elsewhere as the job has become too overwhelming.

The independent evaluation of government policy commissioned by the Health and Social Care Committee finds that the overall response to workforce issues to date has been inadequate.

The Committee chaired by Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP urges the government to increase annual funding for social care by £7 billion a year.

The NHS Confederation insists a £10.50 minimum care worker wage is needed to address the recruitment and retention crisis. But central government remain defiant – no more money.

We know that care workers who remain in the sector are overstretched, working overtime to deliver the complex care that’s needed in their communities. The pressures existed before the pandemic, they were exacerbated at its height, and now they’re worse than ever.

One in three care workers left their job last year

The Commons report paints a picture of a dire situation – one in three care workers left their jobs last year, 95 per cent of care providers are struggling to recruit staff, three quarters of care workers are paid below the Real Living Wage. Worse still, when travel time is taken into account, many home care workers are paid below the national minimum wage.

The government proudly insist they’ve invested £1 billion extra a year in social care without providing a breakdown of how this was spent and still their colleagues in the Commons say it’s not enough.

They have allowed local authorities to raise council tax but overall cuts to their budgets have been calculated at £15 billion over the last ten years. It simply doesn’t add up to an increase. This is gaslighting on an industrial scale.

Social care is a notoriously fragmented system, but for once everyone is in agreement. Without immediate action to fill 165,000 vacancies in social care, the impact will be felt in hospitals and homes across the UK.

Eighty-five per cent of healthcare leaders agreed that the absence of a social care pathway is the primary cause of delayed discharges of medically fit patients, and the latest monthly data tells us that there are 12,400 of these healthy patients stuck in hospital on any given day.

To read the full story visit homecare.co.uk

A care worker told MPs in the House of Commons they need to ditch the perception that care work is unskilled, saying “it is simply not true”.

Chevonne Baker, who works for Right at Home Basingstoke spoke to the Health and Social Care Committee chaired by MP Jeremy Hunt, giving her recommendations for improving retention in the social care sector.

The committee was examining the issues of retention, recruitment and training in health and social care.

Ms Baker believes the label that is often given to care workers as ‘low-skilled’ or ‘unskilled’ is very bad for the profession and makes people feel they are not valued. She said the “hardest challenge at the moment is there are not enough of us to go around” as the demand for care workers is so high.

She added: “I think care has a bit of a bad reputation—it has a bit of a dirty name —which is not helped by the media only showing the negative side. You hear when things go wrong, when stories go haywire, and we are deemed as unskilled workers, which simply is not true. I am trained to be able to walk into a number of different circumstances and situations and to ensure my clients get the best care they deserve.

“Administering care in people’s homes means we are able to monitor their care and their situations, and we can spot when they are not quite themselves and when things start to go wrong, so we can contact health care professionals early to minimise any of the effects afterwards. We play a vital role in keeping people at home, keeping them safe, keeping the NHS under slightly less pressure and trying to keep hospitals a bit freer.

“We do an amazing job, but we are still deemed as unskilled and unworthy of any accolade or acclaim that other health care professionals receive.”

To read the full story visit homecare.co.uk

The UK’s home care sector is spending an extra £75m on petrol and diesel compared to a year ago, according to research by the Homecare Association.

The home care sector’s collective spending on fuel is up from £224 million a year in May 2021 to £299 million in May 2022.

Since May 2021, the cost of petrol and diesel has steadily increased, rocketing in recent months, with analysts predicting petrol could rise to as much as £2 a litre in the next couple of months.

Based on analysis of research by the consumer research website, NimbleFins, the Association found that an estimated 113 million litres are being used by petrol cars on home care visits a year and 60 million litres are used by diesel cars.

‘Dramatic rise in fuel costs since May 2021’

The Homecare Association, which represents home care providers, is urging the government to pay for a temporary fuel allowance to cover rising fuel costs for vehicles used to deliver home care, as well as reinstate emergency Covid-19 funding for care workers to receive full sick pay.

Jane Townson, the chief executive of the Homecare Association said: “We reiterate our call for the government to provide temporary grant funding as a fuel allowance to cover increased costs of fuel for vehicles needed to deliver home care.

“As we have seen, the UK home care sector requires an extra £75 million to cover the dramatic rise in fuel costs since May 2021.”

To read the full story visit homecare.co.uk