Proposals to improve training and career prospects for care workers to help alleviate an ongoing workforce crisis may only “scratch the surface” and ignore the impact of low pay, experts have said.
Councils will need £8.3bn more funding to meet care demand in 2032-33, but this number would need to more than double if authorities are to improve care access and fund reforms, the Health Foundation...
Almost three-quarters of councils in England have used reserves to pay for ballooning adult social care costs – a fact care leaders have highlighted as unsustainable.
Sporadic funding at the onset of Covid-19 following a decade of underinvestment left social care with an “array of weaknesses” that hampered services during the pandemic, researchers have said.
Any ambition to fix the social care sector will fail without sufficient political will to provide a sustainable long-term funding settlement, service leaders have warned.
Funding given to care homes in the first year of the pandemic led to a sharp rise in dividend payments in some large companies while staff in the sector struggled with low pay and high workloads,...
Plans to halve proposed funding to revitalise the social care workforce show the government is not serious about improving and investing in the sector, experts have said.
Delaying its controversial flagship social care policy gives the Scottish Government time to engage with councils over the reforms, local leaders have said.
Councils will be unable to meet the swelling demand for social care without additional funding to help alleviate the ongoing crisis in recruitment and retention, experts have said.
The government has been urged not to blame social care capacity for delays to hospital discharge, and to ensure the sector has enough funding to meet demand.
Government ambitions to integrate health and care services will only be achieved through successful local partnerships, working across organisations with a shared vision, writes Dr Eleanor Roy.
The government will need to spend £6bn over the next three years to help implement care reforms or risk the sector falling into a “state of collapse”, the author of an independent report has warned.
Recruitment and retention issues have led to a 3% reduction in the social care workforce – the first decline in the sector since 2012, experts have said.