While the much-debated cap on personal care costs may help reduce the exposure of some people to potential catastrophic costs in future, the sustainability of the social care system remains on a knife edge now. Experimental statistics published by the Department of Health and Social Care as part of its pandemic monitoring efforts give us insights into the depth of the workforce crisis in the sector.
The number of staff reported by those providers that submitted data fell by 42,000 in the six months to the end of October 2021 (see blue bars). When adjusting for the fact that a changing number of providers submitted data over this period (which has been done in two different ways, see purple and orange dots on the chart), this estimate increases to somewhere in the region of 50-70,000. These figures equate to around 3% to 4% of the total adult social care workforce, which tallies with other evidence suggesting the vacancy rate had increased by half, from 6% in April to 9% in October.
The nature of the staffing pressures may vary between settings with, for instance, the 16 September deadline for the first dose of the compulsory Covid-19 vaccine only relevant for care home staff as opposed to other social care settings. The precise scale of the staffing falls is also unclear given the gaps in the data, so the figures presented here should be treated as broad estimates (see figure notes for more details). Limitations aside, the signal is clear: social care has a deepening staffing crisis.