Report on Funding Cuts in the Health and Socia l Care Sector 2014

The Health and Social Care sector relies substantially on vocational training and therefore values these educational and training experiences highly as a way to assure public safety and deliver high quality care and support services in a civilised society.

This situation remains constant and the need to have funding available to older people remains central to improving skills and care and support services in Wales.

The government have given an extra 5000 apprenticeship places in Wales over the next two years. There were 17,000 apprentices in 2011/12 in Wales this rose to 28,000 apprentices in 2012/2013. 20% (5600) of these apprentices work in the Health and Social Care sector. Apprenticeship funding is the main route to training and development.

There are currently 70,000 workers in Social Care in Wales. Over the last ten years this social care sector has grown more than the whole economy in Wales and this trend will continue to rise with the ever increasing age of the population and the increased demand for services such as dementia care.

In the future there will be a need to replace large numbers of employees who leave the sector due mainly to retirement (Care Council for Wales 2014).

Issues this will have on Care Sector

• Potential Increase in abuse cases• Add to the existing recruitment crisis of care workers• Untrained workforce• Inability to implement the governments priorities eg professionalise the

workforce, move towards supporting people in their own homes asopposed to care homes and hospitals, implementation of Care Standards Act

• Inability to retain the training targets set by National Minimum Standards, andthe ambition to professionalise of the workforce by increasing their knowledgeand skills

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Background

The total population of Wales is expected to increase by 4% by 2022 and by 8% by 2037. The number of people needing care is expected to increase by 50% over the next 25 years. There will be a fall in the number of adults aged 18-24 between now and 2020 (daffodilcymru.org.uk).

These figures suggest that there will be less people between the ages of 18 and 24 who can access full funding to raise their education levels at the same time as the need to recruit and train more social care workers is at its highest.

The current average age of apprentices in social care and early years sectors is 35, with the most common age being 27 years of age 76% (4256) of apprentices in Care in the last year were over age 25.(Care Council for Wales).

The change in government policy in August 2014 means that care workers over 25 will not get funding. Julie James AM said in a recent (October 14) NTFW conference over 25 year olds are not a priority.

The National Training Federation for Wales says there will be 49% less apprentices in Wales this year even though the government have granted funding for an extra 5000 places. These places will go unfilled.

Care homes in Wales are closing due to lack of staff. (Care Forum Wales, August 14. BBC News August 14)

To address this issue Mario Kreft Chair of Care Forum Wales said "we have to make working in domiciliary and residential care homes a profession with status, recognising its value to the community and that it underpins our National Health Service"

How can this happen when there is no training for staff?Mario Kreft goes on to say that morale and motivation of care workers is at its lowest ever.

Case study - WrexhamA domiciliary care agency in Wrexham has recently not tendered for a contract because they can’t recruit sufficient quality staff.

The contract was for 1200 hours of care and which is the equivalent to 35 full time staff. A recent advert they put in the local press and Careers Wales website resulted in 1 applicant who was then found to be unsuitable. A previous advert resulted in 1 suitable applicant out of 18 that applied.

Case Study - Powys Recruitment Crisis County Times Aug 21st 2014 - Powys Fiasco of Domiciliary Care - £8.4m package of investment in services to support older

people in Mid and West Wales, particularly the frail elderly, to maintain their independence and remain in their homes.

The care company that was awarded this contract however could not fulfil it as they couldn’t recruit sufficient staff.

Russell George AM stated “patients deserve better. Some have been in hospital for three months for non-medical reasons because of the lack of care. “

Even if the company were able to recruit staff these staff would remain untrained.

Effects on lack of staff training and incidents of abuse Age UK reported there were 300 cases of abuse per day in 2013. They stated that this had increased by 28% on the previous year.

The majority of proven abuse cases on vulnerable adults in Wales in 2012/2013 related to older people (63%) of these;

39% involved older people who lived in their own home and 35% lived in a care home.

Less than 5% of abuse cases were reported by the victim (First Release Statistics for Wales).

In domiciliary care, workers work 1:1 with clients so these cases will therefore go unreported.

41% of perpetrators were staff

27% of abuse cases are inconclusive (lone workers in clients homes – no evidence available therefore need to prevent it happening in the first place)

Lack of staff training increases the risk of abuse (SCIE social care institute for excellence)

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Recruitment Crises in Care in Wales

Case Study - Daily MailA recent report in the Daily Mail highlighted an elderly man who had had 70 different carers provide him care in his own home and there had been a string of abuse incidents over the time. He and his wife felt they had no power to do anything about it so they let it happen.

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What are the Government going to do?

What are the government doing about this?

• They are going to expect employers to contribute to training (National TrainingFederation for Wales October 2014). However employers cannot afford this. Progression Training charges less for Diploma's in Health and Social Care than they did 10 years ago.

One employer we work with has an annual training budget of £800 for the whole of her staff team. The Social Care Workforce Development Partnership (SCWDP) Programme from Welsh Government indicates why achieving co-investment in social care training has remained a challenge throughout the 12 year history of this programme (wales.gov.uk/docs/dhss/publications/130529socialcarecircen.pdf)

• The government have stated in July 14 that they are not going to treat the care sectorany differently than any other sector.

Feedback from employers

Progression Training works with over 100 Care employers across Wales. Feedback from the majority is they don’t recruit under 25 year olds for a variety of reasons:• Under 25’s don’t apply for jobs• They are unreliable• They don’t have the life and job experiencerequired• High turnover in this age group• In Childcare the carer has to be at least 5years older than the child receiving care. Therefore services who care for teenagers cannot recruit many people in the under 25 age group.

Since August 14 Progression Training has built up a waiting list of nearly 100 applicants for the over 25 age group. We secured funding for 45 aged 25 and over apprentices in July. Since then we have not started any apprentices even though we receive enquiries every day for this age group.

Employers are saying this is age discrimination. Progression Training has received complaints from individual learners that we are discriminating. We have signposted them to the Welsh Government.

Domiciliary care contracts in particular are going to the lowest priced tenders. They cannot afford staff training as this will be the first thing to go when there are budget cuts

The Welsh Government are not responding to employers needs or the needs of people in Care

• What does this policy sayabout the way we treat the most vulnerable people in society?

• Is the Welsh Governmentgoing to change their policy and treat the care sector differently than other sectors in terms of funding for training?

• Is the Welsh Governmentgoing to wait until more people are left without care before they change their policy?

• Is the Welsh Governmentgoing to wait until more people are abused before they change their policy?

• Or is the WelshGovernment going to stand back and let this happen?

• Would you like the carethat is currently on offer in Wales to be given to your mother or father or yourself? If not then the care service is not fit for purpose andaction needs to be taken now

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Ethical Questions

Thank you for taking the time to read this report;

If you would like to find out more how you can help regarding this matter please contact;

Anne Marie FurseCompany Director

Tel: +44 (0) 1492 542 217 Email: am.furse@progression-training.co.uk

T. +44 (0) 1686 629 168

www.progression-training.co.uk courses@progression-training.co.uk

@progressionltd /ProgressionTrainingLtd /company/progression-training-ltd

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