Skills for Care (SfC) has launched a new campaign with the aim of “explaining and promoting” its ‘Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care’.

Rishi Sunak’s government announced the Care Workforce Pathway in January of this year in the wake of its decision to crack down on immigration.

After its decision to ban migrant care workers from bringing dependants with them to the UK on the Health and Care Worker Visa, the government was forced to create a plan that would see more UK nationals entering the care workforce. This resulted in the Care Workforce Pathway, of which little has been heard since.

Skills for Care, however, in July launched its own ‘Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care’, and has now launched a campaign titled ‘Driving change in social care’ in a bid to educate care companies on the strategy.

Jane Brightman, director of workforce strategy for Skills for Care, wrote in a post on the organisation’s website: “The strategy sets out a path towards creating a sustainable, skilled and motivated workforce that is capable of delivering high quality care into the future.

“This September, our ‘Driving change in social care’ campaign will focus on explaining and promoting the workforce strategy, as well as advocating for its recommendations to be adopted and applied across the sector.

“Development of the strategy involved hundreds of people and organisations from across adult social care, healthcare and education. It represents a coordinated effort to improve the recruitment, retention and training of the adult social care workforce in addition to laying the groundwork for transformational change.”

She went on to explain: “Our sector faces several challenges. Across England, the number of people aged 65 and above is set to increase from 10.5 million to 13.8 million by 2035 – an increase of around 32%. The number of people with dementia and the number of people aged 18-64 with a learning disability, mental health need or a physical disability is also projected to increase over this period.

“In addition to this, adult social care also suffers from high staff turnover, recruitment difficulties, and a lack of recognition for care workers and other social care staff. The social care workforce has grown by 210,000 since 2012. However, our projections show we need to recruit an extra 540,000 posts by 2040, which equates to an average of 36,000 new posts every year from 2025.”