Care England has partnered with four organisations to offer an end-to-end solution to solving the social care workforce crisis.

The body has teamed up with Care Character, Care Friends, Jobtrain and Vivup, to bring more domestic staff into care roles and support them to remain there.

Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, said: “The adult social care workforce remains in a deep-rooted and systemic crisis. In the absence of meaningful government intervention, it is incumbent upon the sector to explore innovative solutions to support their workforce and open doors to new opportunities for staff. Care England is pleased to have developed a unique initiative to help bring more domestic staff into care roles and support them to remain in the sector. With a third of the workforce leaving their roles every year, at a cost of over £6,000 per rehire, there is an annual £3 billion cost to the sector which is simply unsustainable. We hope that our end-to-end solution will go some way in supporting care providers to navigate workforce challenges.”

Care England and Hft’s 2023 Sector Pulse Check report cited workforce costs as the most significant financial pressure for adult social care providers in 2023. Staffing shortages are having a profound impact on the viability of care providing organisations, staff and the people we support – due to staffing shortages in 2023, 44% of adult social care providers turned down new admissions, over half (54%) increased agency use and 18% had to close services altogether.

Care England said these challenges were likely to be compounded by the introduction of new measures that will restrict the flow of international recruits into the sector. Green added: “Workforce recruitment and retention is the single biggest issue affecting our sector, with serious implications for the quality of care and knock-on effects across the NHS and wider economy. Time and time again, national campaigns have sought to generate an interest in social care with limited results. Care England’s end-to-end solution has the potential to fundamentally shift the recruitment and retention practices in the social care sector, improving outcomes for those who draw on care and support, staff and care providers.”