EDITOR'S VOICE + CONTENTS CONTENTS 12 POWERING PROGRESS


Apprenticeships must be central to workforce strategy in social care, says Sarah Arnesen, Marketing Director of Paragon Skills.


22 SCALING DEMENTIA CARE TECHNOLOGY


To truly tackle the dementia challenge, we must change the conversation around how we treat the disease. Devika Wood, CEO of Brain+, explores how technology offers us a way to do this.


26 A QUIET REVOLUTION


Digital transformation has moved beyond a niche goal. It’s a present reality, actively reshaping how care is delivered across England, says Daniel O’Shaughnessy, Head of Programme Delivery at The Digital Care Hub.


30 FROM CRISIS TO CONTROL


Deborah Nicholson, Partner and Head of Crime & Regulatory at Markel Law, examines how care homes can safeguard their organisation and its service users.


32 LIFTING THE LOAD


Helene Jones, UK Head of Care Homes at international multi- service provider Elis, looks at the professional advantages of care homes outsourcing their laundry services.


36 GROOMING GANGS INQUIRY: SYSTEMIC CHANGE NEEDED


Paul O’Rourke, Managing Director of Next Stage Group, discusses what the government’s statutory inquiry means for victims and shares insights from working with victims in Rochdale.


Hello and welcome to the August/September issue of Tomorrow’s Care.


According to the latest figures from Skills for Care, the workforce development organisation for adult social care in England, vacancy rates across the sector have dropped back to pre- pandemic levels.


Data from the Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set (ASC-WDS) shows the vacancy rate for 2024/25 declined to 7%, matching the levels seen before 2021/22, when it had reached a peak of 10.5%. In 2024/25, there were 111,000 vacant posts – a 12.4% reduction compared with the previous year. The number of filled roles increased by 3.4% to reach 1.6 million. While this rise was smaller than the year before, it still represented the second- largest annual growth on record.


Oonagh Smyth, Skills for Care’s CEO does state, however, that the sector must remain vigilant, as recent vacancy drops may be partly due to wider economic trends, which can cause unpredictable fluctuations in social care staffing and we still need 470,000 more posts by 2040.


Sarah Robinson, Editor Ryan Lloyd, Editor


With this in mind, our main feature focus this month is on Recruitment, with Pete Humphreys, Head of Customer Engagement at Flourish, offering some thoughts on how we might solve the issue of staff retention in the care sector. We also have Ewelina Wiesner sharing her story of how she founded SilverStars Care and is building a culture of compassion, flexibility and respect at the company, which is helping to keep staff on board.


Elsewhere, we have Safeguarding; Laundry; and Technology & Soſtware heading up our remaining features.


Enjoy the issue.


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