Recommendation 26

HM Government Acknowledged

The social care workforce is critical to enabling the highest standards of care and support. We have listened to and engaged with frontline staff, sector leaders and our partners about how the Government can best support those who work in care. Our objectives are to enable the highest standards of care and to support our social care workforce to achieve their full potential through developing the skills of all staff working in the sector. As part of the Government’s “People at the Heart of Care: Adult Social Care Reform” White Paper, we announced our ten year reform vision, which puts people at the centre of social care and will ensure greater choice, control and support to lead an independent life with fair and accessible care. The measures, which include a new £300 million investment in housing, £150 million of additional funding to improve technology and increase digitisation across social care, and a £500 million investment in the workforce, which will include hundreds of thousands of training places and certifications for our care workers and professional development for regulated workforce. It will also fund mental health wellbeing resources and access to occupational health funding to help staff recover from their extraordinary role in helping the country through the pandemic. In developing these plans for reform we have worked with over 200 stakeholders, including local government, think-tanks, providers of care and their representatives, professional bodies, charities, unions and people with lived experience of care and support.