Recommendation 4

The nursing needs of social care remain an unaddressed afterthought for the Department of Health & Social Care. Vacancies for nurses in social care have increased from a rate of 4.1% in 2012–13 to 9.9% in 2018–19, while the number of registered nursing posts in social care has fallen by 10,400 (20%) since 2012–13. The NHS and social care providers both recruit from the same overall pool of nurses. While NHSE&I recognises the importance of social care and the value of better integration between the two sectors, social care will still not be included in the NHS People Plan. The Department considers that it would be too challenging to develop an integrated workforce plan for health and social care as its powers and influence over the two sectors are very different. The NHS expects local partnerships to develop plans across the two sectors, but such partnerships are not statutory, have no organisational accountabilities and rely on the goodwill of constituent bodies. The limited consideration of the needs of social care relative to health is sadly all too familiar from what we have seen previously, for example, when reporting on the adult social care workforce or readying the NHS and social care for COVID-19. Recommendation: The Department should set out its understanding of the nursing requirement across health and social care, and how it expects its actions will support nurse recruitment and retention in social care.