Warnings have been issued that urgent action needs to be taken to sustain the care sector.
The report from the Public Accounts Committee also stresses that steps need to be taken to improve the public perception of care work in order to grow recruitment and staff retention.
It highlights that despite the precarious position of the adult social care sector, the Department of Health and Social Care have not yet clarified a plan to sustain it in the long term.
In addition to uncertainty around the way care is commissioned on a local authority basis, the report also raises the question over workforce sustainability after the UK’s departure from the European Union. With a view to alleviate the staffing pressures which certain areas face, the Committee also highlight a need to reverse the care sector’s poor public image to encourage recruitment.
Whilst the Department for Health and Social Care have committed to releasing a Green Paper on later life care funding, the Committee voiced their concern that this alone is seen as a ‘cure all’, in turn underestimating the extent of the challenge. In order to ensure the workforce strategy can be successfully implemented, they state that the Department should make sure Skills for Care, its delivery partner, is supported.
Commenting on the findings of the report was Meg Hillier. The Committee Chair stated: “Adult social care needs sustainable funding and a stable workforce. The sector is scraping by and without an explicit, long-term plan backed by Government it could soon be on its knees.
“Levels of unmet need are high and rising; short-term funding fixes are a road to nowhere and the ingrained issues that lead to high turnover in the workforce could be compounded by Brexit.
“Government should not content itself with councils’ ability simply to meet the legal minimum for care provision.
“Nor should it seek solace in measures that risk opening a prolonged debate on the challenges facing the sector. Those challenges are already well-documented, clear and pressing.
“We urge Government to publish this year, and then implement, a credible long-term funding plan for care.
“This must go hand-in-hand with financial and other support to improve the recruitment, development and retention of the care workforce.
“Skills for Care summed it up when it described perceptions of care work as a minimum wage sector as ‘a source of national shame’.
“This skilled and vital work transforms people’s lives. It could and should be a source of national pride and we urge Government to give swift and serious consideration to the recommendations set out in our report.”
