Recommendation 26

The Minister for Care and Mental Health asserted that the chapter on the workforce in the People at the Heart of Care White Paper is the Government’s social care workforce strategy, but the number of further calls for a social care workforce strategy that have been made since the White Paper’s publication clearly indicates that the contents of that chapter do not amount to a strategy, or are not what the sector expected to see from one. The Government should publish a 10-year strategy for the adult social care workforce. It should develop the strategy in collaboration with care workers, providers, local government, the NHS, unpaid carers, and people receiving care. The strategy should not just be a wish-list but needs to be a clear roadmap with core milestones, outcomes, and measures of success. We agree with the Government that retention should be a key performance indicator, but it is important that measures of success also include opportunities for progression, reduced prevalence of zero-hour contracts, and whether care workers feel valued for the highly skilled nature of their work. (Paragraph 117) 78 Long-term funding of adult social care