Page 46 - Unfair To Care 2024 - Who Cares Wins

SIN 4. INEFFICIENT CARE SERVICES
THE TOTAL COST TO THE SYSTEM OF RECRUITING 390,000 PEOPLE AT AN AVERAGE COST OF £3,600 COULD BE AS MUCH AS
£1.4BN PER YEAR.
SKILLS FOR CARE ESTIMATE THAT THE CARE WORKER COST PER HIRE IS ON AVERAGE £3,600.
SECTION 6: THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS
Unfair low pay causes major problems for social care providers and their recruitment and retention efforts, leading to extremely high vacancies
and turnover rates across the sector.
The 2023 Care Quality Commission report41 states
that many adult social care services have difficulties attracting new staff to roles to fill the vacancies caused by low pay, high pressure, and staff burnout. 10% of roles in adult social care in England were vacant
in 2022/23, equivalent to 152,000 vacancies.
Skills for Care estimates the turnover rate of directly employed staff working in adult social care was 28.3% in 2022/23, equivalent to approximately 390,000 leavers over the year – with low staff morale and burnout contributing to these low retention rates.
The perceived low status and pay, as well as lack of training and in-work support, is another compounding factor. In some roles, there is also little opportunity for career progression, which makes it more difficult to attract and retain staff that have the right skills and values. These challenges are only going to increase with an ageing population and more people requiring support.
An analysis by the Health Foundation42 shows that social care is often a stepping stone to employment in the health sector. The most common destination occupations for 28%
of lower paid social care staff leaving care are nursing auxiliaries and assistants (17%) and nursing (11%). Their report points out that policies that aim to address staff shortages only in the NHS could exacerbate vacancies in social care.
Low pay is highly inefficient, unproductive, and costly. It means, on average, that care providers spend time and resources on recruiting and training nearly a third of their staff of every year. A research report by the House of Commons Library43 says that Skills for Care estimated in 2021 that it costs employers £3,600 to recruit one replacement care worker, giving a total annual cost to the sector of £1.4 billion.
Moreover, this fails to account for the wider ‘opportunity cost’ of furthering the impact, innovation, and reach of social care providers, as vast amounts of their operational and back- office time and bandwidth are deployed to simply managing a churn of recruitment and the fallout of vacancies.
41. ‘The state of health care and adult social care in England 2022/23’, Care Quality Commission, October 2023
42. ‘Lower paid NHS and social care staff turnover’, The Health Foundation, November 2022
43. ’Adult social care workforce in England’, The House of Commons Library, January 2024
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