{"id":9677,"date":"2021-10-14T15:30:57","date_gmt":"2021-10-14T13:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ceidiog.com\/pr\/?p=9677"},"modified":"2021-10-14T15:30:57","modified_gmt":"2021-10-14T13:30:57","slug":"stop-poaching-our-staff-social-care-leader-tells-nhs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ceidiog.com\/pr\/news\/stop-poaching-our-staff-social-care-leader-tells-nhs\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop poaching our staff, social care leader tells NHS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pay needs to be \u201clevelled up\u201d to stop NHS poaching our staff, says social care leader<\/strong><\/p>\n

A social care leader his hit out at the \u201cmadness\u201d of the NHS poaching staff from care homes and domiciliary care companies by offering them higher pay.<\/p>\n

According to Mario Kreft MBE, the chair of Care Forum Wales, it was folly for the health service to snaffle workers when social care was facing its biggest ever recruitment crisis.<\/p>\n

He warned that tempting social care staff with the promise of bigger pay packets would come back to bite the NHS.<\/p>\n

Social care played a massive role in enabling the health service to function but the staff emergency in social care meant that hospitals were unable to discharge patients back into the community \u2013 either to their own homes or into care homes.<\/p>\n

What should happen instead, said Mr Kreft, was a \u201clevelling up\u201d of pay rates so that staff in social care could earn as much as their counterparts in the NHS.<\/p>\n

It was essential to find a long term solution but in the meantime Care Forum Wales are calling for extra funding to provide retention payments for staff to \u201cprovide a sticking plaster over the winter months.<\/p>\n

The root of the problem was chronic underfunding of social care both by local health boards and county councils.<\/p>\n

Fees were calculated using a formula which often determined the pay rates of the staff working in social care.<\/p>\n

That meant health boards and councils controlled the market and were able to poach staff by offering them more money.<\/p>\n

Mr Kreft said: \u201cThe social care sector was very fragile going into this pandemic and one thing that we can learn is how we can ensure we have a very strong sector going forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to ensure the people who work in social care and the people they care for have a great deal more consideration.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the case in the early days of the pandemic that social care was an also ran and the focus was the NHS and we paid the price for that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am seeing some very positive actions coming out of the Welsh Government and one of the key elements is how we respect our social care workers and how we respect social care.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to level up social care to be on a par with the NHS. The health system and the social care system shouldn\u2019t be working separately \u2013 there should be an efficient, integrated system in which health and social care dovetail with each other to deliver services.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the pandemic started two years ago, everything was concentrated on ensuring the NHS did not fall over.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople did not think enough about social care but thankfully that has now changed but we have to do a lot more.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven at this time we have health board across Wales recruiting social care staff with offers of higher pay.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe irony is that these are the very people social care needs to provide a foundation for the NHS so we have got a long way to go before we have a system that delivers the services we need here in Wales.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe shortage of staff is the worst crisis that domiciliary care and care homes has seen in living memory.<\/p>\n

\u201cOften the people being poached are our most experienced, qualified staff who are the most difficult ones to replace.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re often being tempted by the big bucks of temporary bank contracts which don\u2019t benefit from the same employment rights you would automatically as a permanent member of staff\u00a0 in a care home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re offering terms that\u00a0 providers can\u2019t afford and are not sustainable on the fees being paid to the independent sectors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fees being paid are a postcode lottery because the current system is broken.<\/p>\n

\u201cEssentially, we have 29 variations on a theme because we have 22 local authorities and seven health boards coming up with wildly differing rates.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need root and branch reform so we have a complete overhaul of how social care is funded, with a more rational national approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the First Minister said, the sector was very fragile going into the pandemic so we have to find a mechanism so that people working in social care are properly rewarded.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we know is that social care is a vital part of the foundation economy here in Wales.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s worth at least \u00a33 billion a year here in Wales so we shouldn\u2019t be looking at cost we should be looking at the value of social care.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout solid social care provision, the NHS cannot perform so we have to make sure we change things for the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have thousands of job vacancies in social care in Wales and as result we\u2019re seeing people in hospital who can\u2019t be discharged to their own homes because there aren\u2019t enough domiciliary care workers .<\/p>\n

\u201cBizarrely, we\u2019re now seeing care homes not being able to take people from care homes from their hospital beds because they haven\u2019t got the staff because health boards have effectively poached them to work in the NHS. It\u2019s madness and something has got to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

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