Social care system "at risk of collapse" without government intervention
We've spoken to a Bristol care worker as Care England says Number 10 must act
The social care sector is at genuine risk of collapse unless the government invests more in recruitment.
That's what we're being told as Care England begins a national campaign today (November 14) to raise awareness of the issue.
They are warning there soon will not be enough carers to look after our loved ones, which in turn could cause the collapse of the NHS because there won't be anywhere to discharge patients to when they are ready to leave hospital.
"Care England warns that a multitude of factors will prevent workers from joining the care industry and in turn, this will have implications for the NHS, namely alleviating the backlog and keeping people in costly hospital beds for a longer period," a statement from the group reads.
"With a competitive job market and wages not inflating in line with the cost of living, many care companies cannot afford to compete with the NHS or retail who can pay higher wages.
"This is largely due to underfunding of the sector and negative press which dissuades people from joining a role which can be incredibly rewarding."
Bed blocking is already a huge issue in hospitals, with the Bristol Royal Infirmary (BRI) last year recording more 12 hour waits for a bed than any other hospital in England.
At the time the interim medical director at the University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the BRI, released a statement partially blaming an inability to discharge medically fit patients into care homes.
"We are working together with local health and care partners to ensure that people who need hospital care can be admitted and then discharged from hospital safely as soon as they are medically well enough to leave," Emma Redfern said at the time.
At around the same time in 2021, a South West GP also told us the government has to act.
"They have to fund community services better and social care better so we can improve the flow of patients through the hospital," Lucy Pocock said.
An "Unfair to Care" report, published in July 2021, found social care workers are being undervalued by nearly £7,000 per year compared to peers working in the NHS or other public-funded sectors.
"Care England is calling for an increase in pay in the sector to improve social care recruitment and retention, circa £5 per hour," their statement continues.
"A national care worker minimum wage that sits above the National Minimum Wage and is in parity with the NHS and local authority-run care homes is needed."
We have spoken to Josh Walker, who works at a care home in Bristol.
"Things have been a lot harder since the pandemic generally, but I would say that the last two to three months we've really noticed a tipping point," he said.
"It's so difficult to keep the numbers that we need...recruitment has become a full time job now."
Josh says there needs to be much more parity between how hospitals and social care are funded.
"We very much feel that health is the golden boy and social care is sort of forgotten...
"A local authority would pay us £771 to fund a resident for a week," he said.
"Whereas that same resident in a hospital would cost the NHS £2,000-£2,500, but because it's coming out of a different pot, they just don't talk to each other properly."
Bristol GP Lucy Pocock said almost the exact same thing to us last year.
"Everybody always focusses on what's going in the hospitals and that's absolutely right, they're very busy and it's important we get that care right, but in order to protect the hospitals from getting overwhelmed, we need to look at the community," she told us.
"We know that 90 percent of patient contacts in the NHS happen in primary care, so you need to fund primary care properly.
"We see 90 percent of the patient contacts and we receive something like 11 percent of the NHS budget."
Josh says an issue with the Universal Credit benefits system is also causing huge problems.
"We have quite a few staff that will lose out quite significantly on their benefits if they earn over a certain threshold, which in practice means they can't ever pick up any overtime to help us out," he said.
"It's really frustrating to have a conversation with a staff member who says, 'yeah I'd love to do some overtime, but I'd lose all my benefits and I can't afford to do that.'
"They work more and get paid less.
"It's crazy."
Last year the government announced it would increase National Insurance by 1.25 percent to help better fund social care, but that planned tax rise was then cancelled in September as part of then Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng's failed mini-budget.
To date, the policy has not been reintroduced, despite the Conservative government u-turning on the vast majority of the mini-budget's contents.