Care worker shortage means thousands of people missing out on care

More than two thirds (67 per cent) of registered managers of care services have reported they have limited or stopped admissions of any new residents into care homes or refused new requests for domiciliary care because they do not have enough staff to care for them, new survey reveals.

The survey published by The National Care Forum (NCF) and The Outstanding Managers Network estimates that this amounts to approximately 5,000 people who have been turned away from care since 1 September.

The survey which polled 340 managers running services that employed 21,314 staff and supported 15,450 reported their average staff vacancy rate was 17 per cent.

One manager said it was "heartbreaking, turning down 10 plus packages of care that are needed a day."

Another manager said: “Turned down complex care requests sadly, have not got enough staff to look after new people with complex needs safely.”

Vic Rayner, chief executive of the NCF said: “These findings make uncomfortable reading and offer evidence of the stark reality being experienced by care providers and registered managers on the ground, and of the pressure they are under every day to provide care and support to the people who rely on them.

“The significance of this data means that people are not being discharged from hospital when they need to, to continue care and treatment at home or in residential care settings. And providers are having to make very difficult decisions about who they can support, sometimes resulting in people with high or complex needs not getting access to the care and support they desperately need. This cannot continue, it has to stop now.”

'These responses are stark reading and highlight the difficulties faced by the sector'

Of those who responded 76 per cent ran services for older people – the majority being care homes without nursing, and 24 per cent ran domiciliary care services. The majority of responses were from South East and South West England.

Jane Brightman, co-founder of the Outstanding Managers Network said: “These responses are stark reading and highlight the difficulties faced by the sector and consequently the people who use care. This has been getting worse over time and very concerning for the winter ahead.

Care Managers are exhausted, as are their teams. They have been working tirelessly with no let-up in sight. We’ve been calling on the government to work with the sector to provide more support and opportunity to improve this dire situation.”

The NCF say it is imperative that the government acts now to pay a retention bonus to recognise those staff who have worked tirelessly for the last 19 months of the pandemic, fund a pay increase for all care staff to improve recruitment and reduce the numbers leaving, add care workers to the Shortage Occupation List for a time limited period to help the care sector, create a new fully funded, flexible dedicated workforce fund to support the wellbeing of existing staff, and support recruitment and retention and delay the implementation of mandatory vaccinations in care homes.