New plan to address social care workforce challenges

Earlier this month Dawn Bowden MS, Minister for Social Care launched the Social care workforce delivery plan 2024 to 2027.

The delivery plan sets out the social care actions for A Healthier Wales: Our Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care to 2027, which was launched in 2020 and sets out our aims for the workforce over 10 years.

The delivery plan builds on the workforce strategy’s progress since 2020. It includes actions based on the feedback we heard during our engagement work, consultation and the workforce survey.

Minister for Social Care, Dawn Bowden, said: “We are committed to supporting our skilled, dedicated and compassionate social care workforce, and encouraging others to join the profession.

“The Social Care Workforce Delivery Plan has, crucially, been shaped by the insight and experiences of the workforce. It will ensure there is a shared understanding and vision for how we move forward together, to address the challenges that face our social care workers.

“There are no quick fixes but I am committed to driving the change that our highly valued social care workforce needs and deserves.”

Sue Evans, our Chief Executive, said: “It’s more than three years since we launched the health and social care workforce strategy and since then we’ve seen significant progress, but also new challenges.

“The workforce remains committed to supporting what matters to people and their families in every community in Wales, but they are still feeling the impact of the pandemic.

“Staff well-being is also being affected by stress, fatigue, perceived poor working conditions, and feeling undervalued and underpaid for the work they do.

“This ambitious delivery plan is the social care sector’s call to action. It will allow us to continue working together, both in the short and long term, on what needs to be done to tackle workforce challenges and support the workforce and their well-being while they provide quality support.”

Sarah McCarty, our Director of Improvement and Development, added: “The workforce is vital to providing quality social care services and support to the people of Wales.

“This plan and the actions we’ve set out reflect what we heard, and draws on evidence and data about what’s important to the workforce, to individuals using care and support ,and to employers responsible for providing services.

“We want a motivated, engaged and valued workforce, with the capacity, competence, and confidence to meet the needs of the people of Wales.

“We’ll need to work with others to achieve the actions. We’re going to set-up a national strategic implementation group to help make these ambitions a reality and to make sure the plan continues to respond to the sector’s needs going forward.

“We’d like to thank everyone who contributed and helped shape the workforce delivery plan. We’re looking forward to working with our partners across the sector to put the actions in place.”

Take a look at the Social Care workforce delivery plan 2024 to 2027