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CARE HOME


ENVIRONMENT Editor


Matt Seex mattseex@stepcomms.com


Business Manager Mike Gammon


mikegammon@stepcomms.com Journal Administration


Katy Cockle katycockle@stepcomms.com


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Steven Dillon Publisher


Geoff King geoffking@stepcomms.com Publishing Director


Trevor Moon trevormoon@stepcomms.com


THE CARE HOME ENVIRONMENT is published monthly by Step Communications Ltd, Step House, North Farm Road, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN2 3DR, UK.


Tel: +44 (0)1892 779999 Email: info@thecarehomeenvironment.com Web: www.thecarehomeenvironment.com


Matt Seex Editor mattseex@stepcomms.com


Thriving, or just surviving? ISSN NO. 2398-3280


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Welcome to the April issue of The Care Home Environment. There was a sense of resignation at Care England’s Thriving not just surviving conference on 16 March, despite its hopeful title. At last year’s event, there was reason to be tentatively optimistic about the government’s commitment to the sector. The then secretary of state Sajid Javid had appeared engaged with the challenges facing social care, admitting that the government could “no longer keep kicking the can down the road,” and making much of the government’s flagship Health & Social Care Levy. Progress was in the offing, or so it seemed. This year, Thriving not just surviving sounded like wishful thinking, despite Care England CEO Martin Green’s assertion that social care has “the energy, creativity, and drive to succeed.” Minister of state for social care Helen Whately claimed to be “part of a government that backs social care,” yet her speech relied on familiar generalities and platitudes, as she thanked providers for their hard work during the pandemic and highlighted funding commitments made in the Autumn Budget last year. But with the Levy gone and the Spring Budget failing to contain any announcements


about social care, Whately was unconvincing, and it was telling that, unlike Mr Javid last year, the minister left the stage without taking questions, disappearing from view almost before the polite applause for her speech had faded. In other speeches, staff recruitment and retention loomed large, but here, too, there was a distinct sense of wishful thinking going on. Skills for Care CEO Oonagh Smyth pointed out that the social care workforce will “need to grow by 27 per cent by 2035,” despite it having actually shrunk by three per cent last year. As she put it, “if the workforce grows proportionately to the projected number of people over the age of 65, we’re going to need an extra 480,000 people working in social care by 2035,” and this does not factor in the fact that “about 420,000 people in social care are likely to retire in the next ten years or so.” In other words, social care will need to find the best part of a million new workers over the next decade just to keep pace with the country’s growing elderly population. This when recruitment rates are actually dropping! Social care is, one might argue, losing the numbers game, and none of the suggested solutions – overseas recruitment, digital innovation, or somehow convincing young people to enter a badly paid, difficult, and stressful profession en masse – seem capable of squaring the circle. No wonder, then, that when Care England chair Avnish Goyal asked for a show of hands as to how many audience members felt that they were actually ‘thriving’, barely a third put their hands up. I hope you enjoy the issue.


Follow us on twitter @tchemagazine April 2023 www.thecarehomeenvironment.com Follow our page on Linkedin 5


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