NHS Winter Pressures

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I agree that we need a whole-system approach. Workforce is a key part of that, including the adult social care workforce. Again, as all noble Lords did, I welcome the advent of the agreement to do a workforce plan, which needs to take all these factors into account. We need to make sure that it is an attractive place to work, and that people see it as a career progression—and that it is modular so that you can start in social care and, if you want to, progress into other parts of the health service.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the LGA and vice-chair of the All-Party Group on Adult Social Care. Nearly three years ago, the Government created Nightingale hospitals, which were much vaunted and had millions spent on them. Virtually all of them were useless because there was no staffing available for them at short notice. I listened to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, about the short, medium and long-term workforce plan. We are now in emergency time: there are 160,000 social care vacancies and 40,000 nursing vacancies, which includes those in social care. How is this unblocking of beds going to be staffed and by when?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Obviously, prior to this, we were in touch with the adult social care sector to make sure that there was that capacity within the system for it. We have been assured that the capacity exists, but we wholeheartedly agree that we need to recruit the staff to fill those vacancies, which is why we have taken measures to recruit internationally as well as in the domestic recruitment programme. Those are all key components of the longer-term plan to solve this issue.