Social Care Workers

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Dubs]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the shortage of social care workers for (1) residential care homes, and (2) domiciliary care.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)]

My Lords, there is no doubt that we need more people to choose to work in social care. Prior to the pandemic, the vacancy rates for care workers in residential care and domiciliary care were 6.4% and 11.4% respectively. By June 2020, that had declined to an overall rate of 6.6%. We would like to see this number reduced further, which is why we are taking action to support recruitment nationally, and we expect local authorities to support care providers locally.

[Lord Dubs (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, yesterday the Prime Minister promised again to deal with the problem of social care. First, how will the Government fill these vacancies as a matter of urgency? Secondly, what priority will there be for social care in the Government’s digital and healthcare strategy?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the immediate focus is on the national recruitment campaign across broadcast, digital and social media. We acknowledge that there needs to be more recruitment in social care. Encouragingly, the vacancy rate is down, from 7.8% to 6.6%, but we recognise that more needs to be done. We have launched the CARE brand to try to create a stronger employment brand around the care profession.