The number of people working in care is not meeting the country’s growing care demands and unmet care needs are increasing, according to today’s report by the National Audit Office (NAO)
Care Worker Pay
“While many people working in care find it rewarding, there is widespread agreement that workers feel undervalued and there are limited opportunities for career progression, particularly compared with similar roles in health. In 2016-17, around half of care workers were paid £7.50 per hour or below (the National Living Wage was £7.20 in 2016-17), equivalent to £14,625 annually. This, along with tough working conditions and a poor image, prevents workers from joining and remaining in the sector.”
Homecare Workers
“There are around 1.34 million jobs in the adult social care sector in England, across more than 20,300 organisations1. The turnover rate of care staff has been increasing since 2012-13 and in 2016-17 reached 27.8%. The vacancy rate in 2016-17 for jobs across social care was 6.6%, which was well above the national average of 2.5%-2.7%.”
“However, demographic trends suggest that demand for care will continue to increase and people’s cares needs will continue to become more complex. To meet these challenges, the Department estimates that the workforce will need to grow by 2.6% every year until 2035.”
Better Rewards for Carers
Responding to the report, Debs Wilkinson of Home Care company Deckchair Care said “We are now starting to see the industry change to some of these recruitment challenges. Carers are doing some really important life-enhancing work and should be better rewarded and encouraged to stay in the industry.”
“Deckchair Care pay £10 per hour which would be a 33% pay rise for about half of the existing care workers. We also offer guaranteed hours, contracts, training, mileage allowance, holiday pay and pension contributions. Everything you would expect from every other industry in England.”
The government intends to publish a green paper on reforming care for older people by summer 2018.
1There are around 1.34 million jobs in the adult social care sector in England. This excludes an estimated 145,000 jobs for personal assistants, employed by recipients of personal budgets and self-funders and 91,000 care jobs within the NHS.
