Going Online – A National First For Social Care Data Collection

We have lift off! For the first time in England a picture of employment in the social care sector, taking in workforce development, skills training and qualifications, funding and career pathways, is obtainable online to the industry.

The National Minimum Data Set for Social Care (NMDS-SC) is being spearheaded by Skills for Care, the workforce development organisation for people working in adult social care in England. Eleven thousand employers from the private, voluntary and independent sectors, who responded to a call for written data, can now key in a password and see at a glance what developments are taking place across the country.

The next phase over the coming months will see returns from local councils with social service responsibilities, added to the ever-growing list. The service is available to all who contribute data, and to social care policy makers and planners.

Employers across the land were asked to respond to a call for detailed information in 2006, and now their commitment has paid off. Their details are contained in a sophisticated state-of-the-art data collection system, which will be updated on a rolling basis as more information comes flowing in.

Skills for Care’s Chief Executive Officer Andrea Rowe said today that this month’s electronic switch-on marked “a whole new era in the collection of data relating to social care in England.”

And she added: ” The information has provided some surprises, such as the fact that we now know that it is a myth that staff leave social care to work in retail and to earn more with less stress by stacking shelves! Our analysis shows that only three per cent of staff left to go to the retail industry, whilst 18% left to go to another adult care provider and 3% came into care work from retail.

“Social care is the invisible backbone of the health sector, yet its importance is not recognised often enough. If you look at the statistics provided by the Commission of Social Care Inspectorate, the evidence is there. An average district hospital in the NHS has 750 beds. Our nursing homes up and down the country collectively have 164,000 beds that translates into 219 hospitals. In other words, the part that the industry plays is huge and that is why an on-line at a glance picture of what is going on is vitally important.”

Online information available to users is anonymous and confidential but says Andrea Rowe “will prove an invaluable tool in terms of presenting employers with an emerging picture of such things as turnover and vacancy rates, improved workforce development; qualifications and skills, and other vital components of what makes the industry tick.”

The initiative was warmly praised earlier this year by David Behan, the Department of Health’s Director General for Social Care who said at a North East Skills for Care conference that until now social care had been a “data desert.”

Andrea Rowe stressed: “In order to meet the demands of a growing elderly and disabled population it is imperative that the sector plans properly now, and in the immediate future to attract thousands more people to work in adult social care.”