Skills for Care has released its annual workforce data showing vacancies have risen across the sector by 52%.

The results echo what United Response and others in the adult social care sector have been warning the government about for the past several years. The data highlights that the average care worker gets £1 an hour less than a newly hired NHS healthcare assistant. Even more shockingly, Skills for Care reveals that care workers with five years’ experience get just 7p an hour more than new recruits.

Over a month ago we wrote to the new Prime Minister urging her to address the social care recruitment challenge and commit to benchmarking the minimum pay rate for social care workers to NHS Band 3 (currently £10.40) and to funding its introduction from April 2023.

To date, we have not received a reply.

Responding to the Skills for Care report Ali Gunn, United Response’s Public Affairs and Policy Lead said:

“The results of the Skills for Care annual workforce data should make decision-makers worried.

Social care organisations face unprecedented challenges in retaining and recruiting staff. Vacancies are rising, and that number does not look to be slowing as the cost-of-living crisis takes its grip.

COVID-19 should have marked a watershed moment for our sector. One where the recognition for social care workers was turned into reward. But two years on the inertia to tackle this crisis continues. Is it any wonder the sector struggles to recruit?

Just over a month ago we wrote to the new Prime Minister and her deputy urging them to confront the recruitment and cost-of-living crisis for the social care workforce.

35 days later, we have had no reply from either.

Urgent action is needed from government with a clear commitment to remedying the root problems at the heart of our social care system.”