Residential Social Care: Staff

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am enormously grateful for the insight of the noble Lord in this matter, in which I know that he is a great expert. However, he should of course remember that social care is provided through independent providers and local authorities. Social care workers are free to organise themselves as they wish, but that is not the arrangement that we have in this country.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

Last week, three-quarters of providers in the United Kingdom Homecare Association said that recruiting social care workers is the hardest that it has ever been. In July, they warned that they faced a perfect storm of losing staff through Brexit and increased pay in retail and agriculture making their wages uncompetitive. They are at breaking point. One-third said that they are handing back some or all of their care contracts to local authorities because they cannot fulfil their contracts now—this is before they lose any unvaccinated staff—so what steps are the Government taking to urgently help the elderly in our care homes, the care homes and their staff going through this crisis?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am aware of the anecdotes that the noble Baroness alludes to, but they have not been seen through the figures that we have in the department. However, we are providing support to providers: we have a national recruitment campaign that is running in the autumn; we have put in free and fast-track DBS checks for staff recruited in response to the pandemic; and we have the promotion of adult social care careers in our jobcentres.