A new report has called for an immediate pay rise for the social care workforce and pay parity with the NHS.

Unfair To Care has been developed by Community Integrated Care, one of Britain’s biggest social care charities, in partnership with  the global experts in job evaluation, Korn Ferry.

The report found social care workers would need a 41% pay rise (over £8,000) to achieve parity with their NHS equivalents, which on current investment levels would take 23 years to achieve.

Social care vacancies are currently rising by an unprecedented 52% this year with 165,000 roles available at any one time.

The average support worker in England receives a salary of £10.01 outside of London – 89p per hour below the real living wage. With an annual salary of £19,573, support worker pay falls well short of the NHS Band 3 average take home total pay of £27,609. When accounting for NHS entitlements, including sick pay and pension benefits, the report says the pay gap rises to a staggering 64%.

The report highlights that social care pay has tracked above the percentage increases in minimum wage rises for the first time in four years, increasing by 8.2% compared to the national living wage increase of 6.6% but warns that providers are stretching themselves financially to fund these rises.

Four in five (80%) providers believe their income will not fully cover wages, with further research from the CQC Market Oversight Scheme predicting an acceleration of unviable local authority contracts being cancelled.

The report notes the social care workforce enjoys strong backing from the general public with 85% saying staff shortages are a problem for society, 91% thinking social care is important to society and 90% of the public classifying the sector as skilled.  

The report calls on the government to give an immediate and fair pay rise to all frontline social care workers and highlights the need to apply the NHS Agenda for Change framework, which provides a system of pay bands for workers based upon skill, accountability, and experience, to ensure fair pay across these symbiotic systems.

It also recommends a significant expansion of training and development options, a focus on creating routes to career progression, the introduction of professional registration, campaigns to raise the esteem of the sector, investment in mental health support, and wellbeing strategies.

Teresa Exelby, chief people officer at Community Integrated Care, said: “Now, in the midst of an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis, it is clearer than ever that this position is as untenable as it is immoral. We are calling on the government to invest in social care now, to apply NHS terms and conditions in this parallel sector. When delivered alongside other progressive reforms, it will be making its rhetoric of levelling up an absolute reality in the most profound of ways.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We are incredibly grateful to our social care workforce and recognise their extraordinary commitment. That’s why we prioritised social care in the Autumn Statement, providing up to £7.5 billion over the next two years to support social care services and discharge which will helping local authorities address waiting lists, low fee rates, and workforce pressures in the sector.

“We have also launched our annual domestic recruitment campaign, Made With Care, to encourage people to take up a career in adult social care and are investing £15 million to increase international recruitment into the sector.”