Moving forward with the Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care

Oonagh Smyth, CEO, Skills for Care and Sir David Pearson, Co-chairs of the Workforce Strategy Oversight Executive Group discuss why the Strategy is vital for social care and what must happen next to continue the progress made so far.

The one-year anniversary of the Strategy launch has created an important opportunity to reflect on the progress of Strategy so far; the many achievements that have been made, and what’s yet to come.

It’s been incredible to see so much buzz around the Strategy as we mark one year since its launch. This is really important because continued momentum is key to the Strategy’s success. It’s not a quick fix solution; it’s a 15-year plan to make a real change to how social care operates for people who work in care and people who draw on care and support.

People working in social care are supporting our communities every day, and our needs are growing and changing. We're all living longer, but we're not living healthier.

We project that we're going to need an extra 540,000 people working in social care by 2040, this means we need to ensure that the needs of the country are met through excellent roles in social care. The Workforce Strategy is a way for us to achieve that.

We’re already taking strides towards those long-term ambitions, with 50% of the 56 recommendations and commitments within the strategy already completed or in progress.

One of the most exciting things about the Strategy is that it is truly a collective endeavour – across social care, health, education and alongside people with lived experience. What has been so inspiring over the past year is to see so many people take ownership for what they can do personally and in their own organisations to make the recommendations from the Strategy a reality.

Change happens when we work together, it’s about us all making a change in our own space, and that’s exactly what people have been doing.

This means we’ve seen exciting developments such as a new Care Technologist role being developed and piloted by the National Care Forum; a new programme for aspiring Directors of Adult Social Services launched by Skills for Care with support from ADASS, and local authorities and Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) mapping their strategies to the Workforce Strategy.

We’ve also seen some of the policy changes highlighted in the Strategy come to fruition. The Fair Pay Agreement currently being worked on by the Government alongside the sector has the potential to make a significant change for people working in care, and the terms and conditions of employment.

Of course, change also takes time. Social care is a huge sector; it employs more than 1.5 million people and makes up 5% of all jobs in England. That’s why we must all stay behind the Strategy and keep pushing it forward. Sometimes it’s only when we look back that we can see where all those little changes have stacked up to make one big difference.

That’s already the case one year in, and if we keep up the same momentum in five years; 10 years; 15 years those changes will be even greater.

It’s also important that we continue to reflect on and celebrate what we’ve achieved so far.

The commitment and determination of so many people to develop the Strategy, to publish it and then to make it happen is such an important thing for social care in this country and the people who access it.

It's a long-term strategy and the Oversight Executive Group will keep engaging in those constructive discussions with the Government and with the sector to encourage the implementation of all aspects of the Strategy.

We have the evidence base to know that the combined impact of all the recommendations and commitments will make a huge difference for social care and the people in our communities who rely on it, so keeping those conversations going, as well as building on the things that we can implement is critically important over the coming year.

Find out more about the Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care.

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