By Charlotte Webster-
Funding promised to develop the social care workforce in England has been halved, the government has confirmed.
Ministers had last year pledged “at least” £500 million for reforms, to be spent on training places and technology over three years.
However that figure is now £250 million, according to the Department of Health.
In a white paper on adult social care reform published in December 2021, ministers pledged to invest “at least £500m over the next three years to begin to transform the way we support the social care workforce”.
A shortage of social care staff is among the reasons that hospitals have struggled to discharge medically fit patients into adult social care.
However, the Department of Health and Social Care said on Tuesday that plans for a “new care workforce pathway” as well as “hundreds of thousands of training places” will be backed by £250m in funding.
Sally Warren, director of policy at health thinktank The King’s Fund, said the plans were a “dim shadow of the widescale reform to adult social care that this government came into office promising”.
“Demand for social care is at a record high, levels of public dissatisfaction have slumped to a new low and staff vacancies have never been higher,” she said. “These revised steps towards ‘reform’ will do little to radically change the system and, at best, are the bare minimum needed to stop it from collapsing.”
Caroline Abrahams, charity director of Age UK, said it was disappointing that the plans are not expected to include an immediate pay rise for care staff.
“You just can’t provide really good care, tailored to people’s individual needs and aspirations, if you haven’t got the staff to do it,” she said.
Jackie O’Sullivan, of learning disability charity Mencap, said: “This plan is an insult to a sector that was once treated as a priority for government.
“Just over a year ago, the Social Care White Paper laid out the urgent reform needed to enable people to access the care and support they rely on. It has now been diluted beyond recognition.
“Faced with a deficit of 165,000 care workers, the government has chosen to cut its plans to recognise and support this workforce. Without this workforce, nothing else is possible: no increase in quality of care can be achieved; no innovative ideas can be realised; and people with a learning disability who rely on social care will suffer.
“The government needs to act fast on the real issues like workforce pay, timely access to support and the underfunding of the system, before it’s too late.”
A report published in March by trade organisation Care England and learning disability charity HFT described the adult social care sector as “on the precipice” because of financial pressures on providers.
Of the providers surveyed, 42% said they had had to close down part of their organisation or hand contracts back to local authorities to cut costs, while 35% said they were offering care to fewer people.
The report also said that “low levels of pay for care staff is considered to be the biggest barrier to recruitment and retention”.
Skills For Care, which works with the government to provide data on adult social care, estimates that in 2021/22 the staff turnover rate in the sector was 29%.
The 2021 white paper also promised at least £150m in investment in digitisation across the sector. The department has now said that figure will be £100m, and that £50m had already been spent.
The latest announcement did not mention £25m previously promised to support unpaid carers or £300m pledged to improve the supply of supported housing.
The social care minister, Helen Whately, said the package announced on Tuesday “focuses on recognising care with the status it deserves”.
“Care depends completely on the people who do the caring – that’s over a million care staff working in care homes and agencies, and countless relatives, friends and volunteers, acting out of the kindness of their hearts,” she said.
She added that the package was focused on the “better use of technology, the power of data and digital care records and extra funding for councils – aiming to make a care system we can be proud of”.
A coalition of charities described the cut as “just the latest in a long series of disappointments” over social care.
The British government said its reforms would give care “the status it deserves” but some organisations in the sector say they fall short of what is needed.
The government also said its new plan will bolster the workforce and help free up hospital beds.
But the money allocated to the reforms is now just half of what was put forward in 2021.
The white paper further promised to invest at least £150 million in digitisation across the sector, but the Department of Health and Social Care said the figure is now £100 million as £50 million has already been spent.
There has also been no mention of the previously announced £25 million to support unpaid carers or the £300 million mentioned in the white paper to integrate housing into local health and care strategies.
Social care minister Helen Whately said the package announced on Tuesday “focuses on recognising care with the status it deserves”.
She said the reforms focused on the “better use of technology, the power of data and digital care records, and extra funding for councils – aiming to make a care system we can be proud of”.
The Department for Health and Social Care insists that all the promised money will stay within social care and that it has yet to allocate the full budget.
But the King’s Fund health think tank said the measures were “a dim shadow of the widescale reform to adult social care that this government came into office promising”.
Caroline Abrahams, co-chair of the Care and Support Alliance – which represents more than 70 charities – and charity director of Age UK, said the measures “aren’t remotely enough to transform social care”.
Millions of older and disabled people and their carers “needed something far bigger, bolder and more genuinely strategic to give them hope for the future”, she said.
She continued: “With quite a chunk of the money originally promised for care now no longer available, our CSA members are telling us this is just the latest in a long series of disappointments so far as recent government performance on social care is concerned.”
A report from Care England and the HfT care provider in March warned that adult social care was “on the precipice” when it came to costs.
The low level of pay for care staff was considered the biggest barrier to recruitment and retention, the report said.