{"id":30262,"date":"2025-07-10T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lihnnhs.info\/lancashirecarelibraryblog\/?p=30262"},"modified":"2025-07-07T10:06:02","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T09:06:02","slug":"adult-social-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lihnnhs.info\/lancashirecarelibraryblog\/2025\/07\/10\/adult-social-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Adult Social Care"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sustaining the workforce<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST); 2025.<\/em>

What investments and actions are required to create a sustainable health and social care workforce?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key issues discussed included: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Workforce Challenges<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • High vacancy rates<\/strong>: Over 100,000 NHS and 131,000 ASC vacancies in 2023\/24.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Heavy reliance on international staff<\/strong>: 21% of NHS and 19% of ASC workers are from overseas.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Retention issues<\/strong>: High leaver rates, use of temporary staff, and limited uptake of return-to-practice schemes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
    \n\n\n\n

    2. Strategic Plans and Reforms<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
      \n
    • NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan (2023)<\/strong>: Aims to reduce international reliance and address a 150,000 staff shortfall.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • ASC Workforce Strategy (2024)<\/strong>: Focuses on sector growth, education, and changing care demands.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Government reforms (2025)<\/strong>: \u00a386M for facilities, new career structures, digital platforms, and a national care commission.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
      \n\n\n\n

      3. Systemic and Structural Issues<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
        \n
      • Underinvestment in community care<\/strong>: Primary care funding fell from 8.9% to 8.1% (2015\u20132022).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • Infrastructure and training gaps<\/strong>: Outdated systems, limited training opportunities, and fragmented ASC labour market.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • Leadership diversity<\/strong>: Ethnic minority staff underrepresented in senior roles despite making up 25% of ASC workforce.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
        \n\n\n\n

        4. Policy and Organisational Changes<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
          \n
        • NHS England to be absorbed into DHSC (2025)<\/strong>: Aims to reduce bureaucracy and improve care delivery.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
        • New roles introduced<\/strong>: Enhanced care workers and others to address skill shortages, though concerns remain about regulation and outcomes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
          \n\n\n\n

          5. Improving Retention and Productivity<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
            \n
          • Beyond pay<\/strong>: While better pay helps, non-monetary factors like flexible working, wellbeing, and leadership are crucial.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          • Management and morale<\/strong>: NHS is under-managed; better training and support for managers needed.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          • International recruitment concerns<\/strong>: Reports of exploitation led to a \u00a312.5M fund and new guidance for ethical recruitment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
            \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            Sustaining the workforce Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST); 2025. What investments and actions are required to create a sustainable health and social care workforce? Key issues discussed included: 1. Workforce Challenges 2. Strategic Plans and Reforms 3. Systemic and Structural Issues 4. Policy and Organisational Changes 5. Improving Retention and Productivity<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[246],"tags":[407,8835,8837,8834,8838,3456,6829,5023,8831,8836,8833,6163],"class_list":["post-30262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-care","tag-adult-social-care","tag-government-reforms","tag-infrastructure","tag-international-staff","tag-leadership-diversity","tag-managment","tag-nhs-long-term-plan","tag-retention","tag-sustainability","tag-underinvestment","tag-vacancy","tag-workforce"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lihnnhs.info\/lancashirecarelibraryblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lihnnhs.info\/lancashirecarelibraryblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lihnnhs.info\/lancashirecarelibraryblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lihnnhs.info\/lancashirecarelibraryblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lihnnhs.info\/lancashirecarelibraryblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lihnnhs.info\/lancashirecarelibraryblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30264,"href":"https:\/\/www.lihnnhs.info\/lancashirecarelibraryblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30262\/revisions\/30264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lihnnhs.info\/lancashirecarelibraryblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lihnnhs.info\/lancashirecarelibraryblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lihnnhs.info\/lancashirecarelibraryblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}