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• Pressure is rising across the health and social care system from A&E to care homes due to the deepening social care workforce crisis.

  Tuesday, April 26, 2022

  The latest Skills for Care, Social Care Workforce Data shows that vacancies have nearly doubled in the past year, with one in ten social care posts unfilled – a shortage of about 160,000 staff.
  This social care workforce crisis has forced care homes to reduce capacity to ensure safe staffing levels with nearly half of all care homes (40%) refusing to take on new admissions and two thirds of home care providers (66%) refusing requests according to a recent survey carried out by the National Care Forum.
  This has resulted in 20,000 people, who are medically fit to return home or to other community settings, being unable to be discharged from hospitals. This is putting unprecedented pressure on the NHS, the likes of which many NHS trusts have never seen.

• £500 million of dedicated funding to help develop the social care workforce

  Tuesday, April 5, 2022

  From tomorrow, Wednesday 6 April, the Health and Social Care Levy will begin to raise funds to help tackle Covid backlogs and reform services. The levy includes £500 million of dedicated funding to help develop the social care workforce over the next three years. The funding will be spent to help improve recruitment, retention, progression, and staff wellbeing within the social care sector.

• Staff and residents in care homes, extra care and supported living services will continue to have free access to symptomatic COVID-19 testing after 1st April

  Wednesday, March 30, 2022

  Staff and residents in care homes, extra care and supported living services will continue to have free access to symptomatic COVID-19 testing after 1st April and staff will also have access to free asymptomatic testing, twice weekly. Visitors to adult social care settings (unless they are providing personal care to a resident) will no longer be required to take a test.

• Dignity Action Month 2022

  Tuesday, February 1, 2022

  February is Dignity Action month and today is Dignity Action Day and this year’s theme is Put undignified care to bed on Dignity Action Day - Wear Red.

• Adult Social Care White Paper – People at the Heart of Care

  Thursday, December 2, 2021

  The government published their long awaited white paper on Adult Social Care reform yesterday. The white paper, People at the Heart of Care sets out an ambitious 10-year vision for how the adult social care sector will transform support and care in England.

• Adult social care: coronavirus (COVID-19) winter plan 2021 to 2022

  Monday, November 8, 2021

  Building on last year’s adult social care coronavirus (COVID-19) winter plan 2020 to 2021, the plan sets out the:
  - key elements of national support available for the social care sector during winter 2021 to 2022
  - principal actions that local authorities, NHS organisations and social care providers across all settings (including those in the voluntary and community sector) in England should take this winter

• Increased stability in social care and real collaboration across health and social care are key to mitigating the risk of “tsunami of unmet need”.

  Friday, October 22, 2021

  The Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) latest annual report, The State of Health Care & Adult Social Care in England has warned that without increased stability in Social Care and real collaboration across Health and Social Care then there is a real risk of a “tsunami of unmet need” this winter.
  Ian Trenholm, chief executive of CQC, has said: “It’s going to be a difficult winter. We need to grasp the opportunity now to build something better and avoid a tsunami of unmet need.”

• The latest report from Skills for Care reveals the significant impact the pandemic has had on both the short and long-term challenges faced by the Adult Social Care Sector and Workforce.

  Thursday, October 14, 2021

  The annual ‘The state of the adult social care sector and workforce in England’ report produced by Skills for Care was released yesterday – Wednesday 13th October 2021. The report is based on data provided by sector employers to the Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set and it reveals the significant impact the pandemic had on both the short and long term challenges faced by the workforce.

• Protecting the NHS had the unintended consequence of contributing to the spread of COVID-19 infection in care homes, say a group of cross party MP’s.

  Tuesday, October 12, 2021

  The discharge of elderly people from NHS hospitals into care homes without having been tested at the beginning of the pandemic had the unintended consequence of contributing to the spread of infection in care homes, say a group of cross party MP’s.

• Frontline Care Worker COVID boosters can now be booked through the NHS National Booking Service

  Thursday, September 30, 2021

  Frontline health and social care workers can now book their COVID-19 vaccination booster dose through the NHS National Booking Service.
  
  One dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine will be the preferred dose used for the booster programme as advised by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) regardless of which vaccine brand someone received for their primary doses. This follows data from the COV-BOOST trial that indicates the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is well tolerated as a third dose and provides a strong booster response.