In October the National Care Forum (NCF) – the leading association for not-for-profit care and support organisations– continued its call for urgent government intervention to tackle the deepening adult social care workforce crisis, and a commitment to previous pledges and funding.
This follows the publication of the Care Quality Commission (CQC)’s annual State of healthcare and adult social care in England report, which describes a health and care system in gridlock at every point and shows how the failures in different parts of the system are impacting upon one another leading to the deterioration of people’s access to and experience of care – in turn resulting in a deterioration of people’s health and wellbeing.
Amongst its findings, the CQC report states that the workforce crisis in social care is greater than that of the NHS, with 165,000 vacancies; that around 500,000 people are waiting for an adult social care assessment, for care or a direct payment to begin, or for a review of their care; and that, in the first 3 months of 2022, 2.2m hours of homecare could not be delivered because of insufficient workforce capacity, leading to unmet need and under-met needs.
The NCF requested a number of actions to remedy this situation, including:
For the Chancellor to guarantee additional funding for adult social care in line with the findings of the Health and Social Care Select Committee’s recommendations and the Prime Minister’s pledge of £13bn
For the new PM, Rishi Sunak, to commit to the reform of adult social care as outlined in People at the Heart of Care, and provide the funding to fully realise this to ensure people are able to access high quality services when they need them.
Bring forward a fully funded, workforce plan, with pay progression in line with the NHS, making provision for better terms and conditions, training and career structures.
You can read the full article at The State of Care: The Government must listen to people’s experiences and act now - National Care Forum
Follow us
