Viewpoint: social care can’t wait until 2028

Skills for Care recently published its latest ‘Size and Structure of the Adult Social Care Sector and Workforce in England’ report. Rachael Dodgson, Chief Executive of Dimensions, talks about how fixing social care’s workforce demand needs to be a top priority for the next Prime Minister.

Skills for Care’s latest report shows social care still holding on – but only because care and support workers, providers, and local authorities have heroically absorbed years of pressure that should have been addressed by national policy.

Pay is key. As the largest not-for-profit social care provider for adults with learning disabilities and autistic people, we pay the vast majority of our workforce the Real Living Wage or above.

We welcome the increase in filled posts and the improvement in retention. That is our experience at Dimensions, too. And thankfully, vacancies have fallen to their lowest level in a decade – but this figure is still around three times the vacancy rate for the wider economy.

The deeper message is critical: Domestic recruitment is falling, and overseas recruitment has dropped sharply. As evidenced by the report, the number of care workers of British nationality has been falling for the last half-decade, which is particularly concerning in the context of further restrictions on overseas workers.

Adult social care still needs another 410,000 posts by 2040 – a figure equivalent to the entire population of Leicester!

Urgent reform of social care needed

Fixing social care’s workforce demand needs to be a top priority for the next Prime Minister. We have seen promising signs from senior political figures who understand that social care is central to wider public health outcomes, helping people live ordinary lives in their communities, and a more resilient NHS.

Bluntly, if the government wants a stronger domestic workforce, it must fund one. We expect this funding from the government’s upcoming Fair Pay Agreement. Yet frontline care and support workers are being asked to wait until 2028 for the first agreement to take effect.

But social care can’t wait until 2028. That timeframe is much too slow for a sector facing today’s inherent and systemic recruitment challenges.

Whoever becomes Prime Minister, we at Dimensions will continue to make the case for urgent reform of social care funding. People drawing upon care and support deserve nothing less.

Rachael Dodgson is Chief Executive of Dimensions

Rachael Dodgson, Dimensions

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