New checks for wider social care workforce will help drive up standards

31 January 2008.

Regulation of the wider social care workforce will help improve standards of care and go some way towards addressing problems with recruitment and retention, the General Social Care Council (GSCC) said today as it welcomed a report looking at the state of social care in Britain.

The report, from the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI), found that while services continue to improve, the rate of improvement in the standards of care appears to have stalled. Care services are increasingly meeting national minimum standards but not exceeding them. It also found a rise in the level of vacancies for care assistants and home carers and employers reported difficulties with recruitment and retention. This has an impact on people who use services who value consistency and continuity in their care. The report gave encouraging indications on the rate of qualification in the care workforce.

Last year, the Government announced that domiciliary care workers and their managers would be the next group to join the social care register held by the General Social Care Council. Once registered, unqualified workers would be required to undertake training and gain qualifications relevant to their work.

Mike Wardle, Chief Executive of the General Social Care Council, said:
“We welcome the latest State of Social Care report from CSCI, which adds to the increasing body of evidence available about the quality of care hundreds of thousands of people living in England receive.

These findings will help inform our continuing work to help improve standards of care for vulnerable people and will be particularly beneficial when we begin to register the domiciliary care workforce. People who use services want to know that the workers who care for them meet the highest standards and are accountable for their practice. The registration of the wider workforce should also help to address issues around recruitment and retention by increasing the attractiveness of social care in the public eye and building on skills through training and learning.”