In this brilliant article, Florence, outline the importance of putting people at the heart of social care. It also analyses the state of the sector and where it will be in the future. A massive thank you to Florence for sponsoring Care Sector’s Got Talent this year!
Social care is the backbone of society, in 2019/20 839,530 people relied on social care.[1] Without social care, society’s most vulnerable would have a much lower quality of life and many of them may end up in hospital more frequently. Unfortunately, as it stands the UK’s social care system is underfunded and overstretched. It’s an amazing sector to be a part of, you make a positive difference in people’s lives everyday but it’s by no means an easy sector to work in.
Following on from the pandemic more and more social care professionals are leaving the industry due to workplace stress. In fact, 11% of staff both in the NHS and social care permanently left the sector in 2021.[2] This is, in part, due to staffing shortages. This has led to ever-growing vacancies in the industry, and at the moment the adult social care sector in England still needs to fill around 112,000 job vacancies a day.[3] As you can imagine, when care homes become understaffed the level of care is adversely impacted. At the heart of social care is people. There are 1.5 million people working in adult social care in England[4] but with the current challenges the sector is facing this isn’t enough. The World Health Organisation estimates that the global workforce gap in healthcare will be 14.5 million by 2030.[5]
This is what we’re working to change at Florence, we believe everyone should have the care and dignity they deserve. Through innovation and technology we’re working to fix the issues our broken system faces on a daily basis, which disproportionately impact the most vulnerable people in our society. Our free platform puts the worker back in control of their time. We’ve cut out agency middlemen connecting nurses and carers directly with open shifts. When a social care worker signs up to Florence they can pick when and where they work. This allows them to minimise workplace stress as they are in control of their time and in turn helps to fill vacant shifts. Since 2017 over 90,000 care professionals and 2,000 organisations have joined the Florence team.
As society navigates its way out of the pandemic we need to change the way we look at social care. The sector and its workers have been neglected which has had a considerable negative impact on our society. We hope by putting workers back in control of their time it will alleviate the current stresses on both the system and the people that work within it. Social care is a vital part of all of our lives and we’re excited to see what the future of the sector has in store!
[1] https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/audio-video/key-facts-figures-adult-social-care
[2] https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/resource/the-long-goodbye-exploring-rates-of-staff-leaving-the-nhs-and-social-care
[3] https://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/news-and-events/news/social-care-needs-to-fill-more-than-100000-vacancies
[4] https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/audio-video/key-facts-figures-adult-social-care
[5] https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/250330/9789241511407-?sequence=1
