Engage: The Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care and ‘Driving change in social care’

We hear from Oonagh Smyth, CEO of Skills for Care, on how their ‘Driving change in social care’ campaign hopes to promote the Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care.

The ‘Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care’ launched on 18 July 2024. It represents a coordinated effort by hundreds of people across the sector to enhance the recruitment, retention and development of the adult social care workforce.

The Strategy is broken down into three sections:

• Attract and retain
• Train
• Transform

Each of these sections contains a series of recommendations, backed up by relevant data from Skills for Care and other reliable sources, which can help address the current and future challenges faced by the sector.

Why are we doing this campaign?

This campaign aims to promote the Workforce Strategy by making people aware of its recommendations and encouraging organisations to adopt them. However, more importantly, it’s about making sure we recognise the challenges that the Strategy highlights and take steps to address them.

In England, the number of people aged 65 and above is set to increase from 10.5 million to 13.8 million by 2035 – an increase of around 32%. The number of people with dementia is expected to rise by 43% by 2040 and the number of people aged 18-64 with a learning disability, mental health need or a physical disability is also projected to increase over this period.

In addition to this, our sector faces high staff turnover, recruitment difficulties, and a lack of recognition for care workers. The social care workforce has grown by 210,000 since 2012. But, if we need to recruit an extra 540,000 posts by 2040, that equates to an average of 36,000 new posts every year from 2025 – and more than that over the next 10 years. This does not account for the high turnover rate, which was 28.3% across the sector in 2022-23 and even higher for under-20s and registered nurses at 54% and 32.6% respectively.

If our sector is to overcome these issues, we need targeted collective action from people and organisations across adult social care.

How can you get involved?

Many of us come to rely on the help of people working in adult social care, often at critical times in our lives. That’s what makes your support of the Strategy and this campaign so important.

On our website we’ll be sharing insight on how the Strategy can help organisations looking to recruit and retain more staff, improve their training and development opportunities and collaborate to support the transformational change needed across the sector. You’ll find articles covering expert opinions and real-life case studies, as well as signposting to further resources, projects, and other support.

You can also stay updated with our campaign by keeping an eye on this page, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn as well as our regular newsletters and communications.  We’ll be using the hashtag #ASCWorkforceStrategy.

About The Author

Oonagh Smyth is CEO of Skills for Care – the workforce development charity for the 1.5 million people who work in adult social care in England and the strategic delivery partner for the Department of Health and Social Care. Prior to starting in Skills for Care in 2020, Oonagh was the Executive Director of Strategy and Influence in Mencap, her role covered three countries and she led governance, strategy, programme delivery and influencing work.

Picture (c) Skills For Care.