Conclusion 27

We heard repeatedly that an absolutely critical lever for stabilising the adult social care market was tackling staff shortages and low retention. This would widen access to care and help to give unpaid carers a much-needed break. There is also the very real risk that the Government’s charging reforms do not immediately improve matters, for instance by drawing more people into the care system without having enough workers to deliver the care for which these people will now be eligible. We were repeatedly told that the solution is to increase wages. It is little consolation to hear from the Minister for Care and Mental Health that only a fifth of the workforce is on the National Minimum Wage when we know how many workers are leaving the sector for higher paid jobs in other sectors, and that the sector struggles to compete with the NHS. While increasing wages would come at a cost, we were encouraged to see this as an investment because of the connection between wages and quality of care, the extra spending in our economy by better paid care workers, and the cost savings of retaining staff over having to hire more expensive agency staff. The Government’s proposals for health and care workforce integration in the Joining up Care for People, Places and Populations White Paper are welcome, but they must include a requirement to work towards achieving parity of pay for comparable roles across the NHS and social care. The Government’s guidance for fair cost of care exercises should require councils and providers to move towards pay rates for care workers that align with the NHS and that reward more senior staff with meaningfully higher pay than entry level workers.