14 ROUNDTABLE
The Nursing in Practice roundtable panel
Mark Bird Transformational lead for independent health and social care sector , RCN |
Simon Bottery Senior fellow , social care , The King ’ s Fund |
Louise Brady Clinical development lead , Royal British Legion |
George Coxon Care home owner and Nursing in Practice blogger |
Jana Harris Interim head of operations , Hafod |
Louis Holmes Senior policy officer , Care England |
‘ Social care needs to sizzle ’
An expert panel debates the problems around recruitment and retention in social care at a Nursing in Practice roundtable
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‘ tsunami ’ of people might be without care this winter , according to a recent annual report from England ’ s care regulator the Care Quality Commission ( CQC ). Social care staff are ‘ exhausted and depleted ’, CQC chief executive Ian Trenholm has warned , and there are rising numbers of vacancies in the sector . This is a concern across the board in social care , but the highest vacancy rate in England is for registered nurses – it stood at 13.4 % in August 2021 . This is a five percentagepoint increase since March 2020 , the CQC ’ s annual state of health and social care report 1 shows , citing workforce data from the Skills for Care charity .
For the sector as a whole , the vacancy rate among adult social care staff in August 2021 was 8.2 %, a 0.2 percentagepoint increase since March 2020 .
This is a dire situation . As well as managing current challenges , social care needs adequate staffing more than ever as our population ages . Registered nurses are an integral part of the response to this demographic challenge .
Nursing in Practice gathered together a group of 12 leading professionals ( see panel , above ) working in and around the social care sector to examine why it is so hard to recruit and retain nurses in the sector , and to thrash out some potential solutions .
The panel discussed longstanding issues but also recent developments , such as the Government ’ s 1.25 % National Insurance hike from April next year , announced in September – the so-called health and social care levy . The levy is expected to raise around £ 12bn a year , which will mainly go towards clearing the NHS backlog of services worsened by Covid-19 , but just £ 5.4bn of a total £ 36bn is expected to go to social care over the next three years . The potential impact of the controversial mandate for care workers to be double jabbed by 11 November was also considered .
Panel members brought a high level of passion and determination to the debate , sharing fascinating insights and proposing some great solutions .
Why are vacancy rates for social care nurses so high ? ‘ We ’ re just not attracting nurses into the market ’, says Jana Harris , interim head of operations at Hafod , a not-for-profit provider of housing , support and care services in south
nursinginpractice . com Winter 2021