NHS chiefs in England call for social care staff ‘retention bonuses’
The NHS in England is facing the most difficult winter in its history and the government must urgently introduce “retention bonuses” for social care staff or risk them being lured away by retailers such as Amazon in the run-up to Christmas, according to health leaders.
In a survey published on the eve of its annual conference, NHS Providers, which represents hospital, mental health, community and ambulance services in England, reported that 87 per cent of board level executives were “extremely concerned” about the effect of the colder months on hard-pressed services. This is up from 56 per cent when the same question was posed last year.
About 84 per cent were worried that their trusts would lack the capacity to meet demand, while around the same proportion felt that too little had been invested in social care in their area. More than nine out of 10 were concerned about staff burnout.
Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, said capacity levels for winter were now broadly set and trust leaders were reporting that they were finding it “impossible to recruit extra staff”, irrespective of whether funding was available.
If the social care sector was to keep its existing workforce over the next few months, action needed to be taken “really in the next probably two or three weeks because we can’t let this get any worse”, he added.
“It’s not about getting extra people in, it’s about keeping the people we’ve already got [and] ensuring that those who are currently being tempted by large packages in other industries are kept inside the sector,” he said.
Members of the 1.5m social care workforce should be offered a recruitment or retention bonus of at least £500, Hopson suggested, acknowledging that meeting the estimated £750m price tag would probably require “a draw on the government reserve”. Payments could be targeted at places with the worst shortages, he added.
Retailers make a huge chunk of their profits in the six weeks running up to Christmas, allowing companies such as Amazon to afford to pay substantial signing on bonuses “and if we don’t stop that flow [of care staff], that’s a real issue”, he said.
Hopson’s deputy, Saffron Cordery, said “delayed transfers of care”, when medically fit people cannot be discharged due to a lack of community support, were on the rise. “And without social care being supported in this way in the short term, it’s going to be incredibly difficult,” she added.
NHS Providers also pointed to unprecedentedly high levels of bed occupancy for the time of year in many hospitals and ambulance services that were already on the highest level of alert, although the NHS had yet to enter the period of peak winter demand.
The Department of Health and Social Care said: “We appreciate the dedication and tireless work of social-care staff throughout the pandemic. Care homes and home care providers are now benefiting from the new £162.5m workforce retention and recruitment fund to assist local authorities and care providers in working together to ease workforce pressures in a variety of ways.
“The government is investing at least £500m in training to support the care workforce as part of the £5.4bn to reform social care.”
The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services issued its own call on Monday for a one-off £1,000 bonus for care workers to recognise their dedication and — with at least 105,000 vacant posts in England — “help stem the loss of skilled and experienced staff”. The cost would be about £1.4bn gross, but the Treasury would recoup tax and national insurance, it said.
In another sign of workforce pressures, new data from the Nursing and Midwifery Council show that the overall number of people leaving the professions has increased for the first time in several years.
Between April and September this year, a total of 13,945 people left, compared with 11,020 in the same period in 2020. The last time the total number of leavers was higher for the same period was in 2017.