FuturU is on a mission to transform the way health and social care professionals access, experience and fund their education and professional development. The health and social care sector is on the verge of transformation and we believe education is at the heart of building a professional and engaged workforce that not only choose to start a career in care, but also choose to stay.
Learning is at the heart of what we do, and we have many amazing professionals in our industry ready and willing to share their experiences. One such example is Voices of Care, a highly respected podcast hosted by Suhail Mirza who is also an Executive Director on the FuturU Board. The podcast has featured some of the most well known NHS and social care leaders sharing examples of great innovation and presenting solutions to the challenges we face in health and social care in the UK.
In this blog series for FuturU, Suhail reflects on his conversations with leaders across the sector, examining some of the political, regulatory and technological challenges we face and bringing to light some of the opportunities that are ready to be explored, many of which were identified in our 2024 report, A Prescription for Change.
A Prescription for Change - Conversation with Deborah Sturdy
The social care sector is one of the most significant in the UK economy employing 1.6 million people, more than the NHS, and contributing some £60 billion to the economy according to Skills for Care. The sector has featured ever more prominently in recent months with the General Election seeing the Liberal Democrats in particular calling for a national cross party response to ensure the sector is properly respected and its workforce truly valued. The new Labour Government has also committed to the creation of a National Care Service. At FuturU we welcome this approach, addressing the challenges in social care is above party politics and extends beyond a single term in office.
Professor Deborah Sturdy’s appointment as the first Chief Nurse of Adult Social Care is an important one. In addition to highlighting the important role of nurses (some 34,000 work in social care) in the sector, her remit is to champion the sector and its workforce as a whole. Throughout the episode, Professor Sturdy highlights the importance of training and development in social care, including the milestone initiative of the Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate, her own journey in care and why she thinks social care, and all who work within it, are so important to our nation’s healthcare. As she says in the podcast “social care is not just a concept but a means to make a difference in people’s lives”
Yet the sector faces a long standing series of challenges including for its workforce with more than 130,000 vacancies and a staff turnover rate of over 25% for the sector as a whole. Skills for Care estimates that 430,000 more social care professionals will need to be recruited over the next decade to meet demand; and whilst over 100,000 care professionals were recruited from abroad in 2023/24 but given the extent of workforce needed there is now an urgent need to recruit, train and upskill the workforce from within England.
Against this backdrop the launch on 18th July of the new Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care in England by Skills for Care is being seen as a “turning point” for the sector. With a raft of recommendations (including supporting workforce wellness, changing the way apprenticeships work to better pay and conditions) the Strategy envisages a transformation in the way social care professionals are trained. It also recommends that the new Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate continues to be rolled out.
The Strategy also highlights the role of the nursing profession, something we feel sure Deborah Sturdy would be delighted to see; and its recommendations here include that the Department of Health and Social Care and its partners (including Integrated Care Systems across the NHS) develop a career framework for registered nurses working in adult social care and that adult social care as a sector should be promoted across Higher Education.
Perhaps these recommendations will lead to more people being attracted to the social care sector and richness of roles that nurses play within it; a point Professor Sturdy in the Voices of Care podcast spoke passionately about:
“We need to change the perception of nursing and social care as it doesn’t happen only in care homes. It is often forgotten that we have very skilled learning disability nurses, mental health nurses working in social care.”
