Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on filling vacancies in the social care sector.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mims Davies MP) and I met last year to discuss social care recruitment and we are continuing to work closely with the Department for Work and Pensions on filling vacancies in the social care sector. For example, we are providing resources to jobcentre work coaches to help them promote adult social care careers to jobseekers, including those who may have lost their jobs during the pandemic from other sectors that have been hard hit, such as tourism, hospitality and retail

In addition, in order to attract more people to the sector we ran a national recruitment campaign across broadcast, digital and social media. The current phase of the campaign, which launched in February, highlights the vital role that the social care workforce has played during the pandemic, along with the longer-term opportunity of working in care.