Social care reform must start with the workforce – here’s why

The UK government is reshaping social care reform to prioritize the workforce. In his recent speech, Prime Minister Andy Burnham emphasized improving pay, training, and career progression for care workers—a significant shift from decades of reform debates focused mainly on funding questions. The Conversation reports this change is necessary because social care faces a workforce crisis alongside its financial one. Currently, most care is delivered by unpaid family and friends, roughly a quarter of whom live in poverty. The formal workforce is predominantly female and aging, increasingly taking on complex healthcare tasks—administering medication, monitoring blood sugar, treating pressure ulcers. Yet they continue to earn low pay and face limited career advancement. Recent immigration rule changes cut off overseas recruitment, so the sector must rely entirely on domestic workers. Recent research reviewed by The Conversation found that a quarter of care workers plan to leave their jobs as soon as they can, citing the job's impact on their health, inadequate pay, and lack of sector recognition. Experts argue that fixing the retention crisis will require cross-departmental government action—touching immigration rules, youth employment programs, and economic participation efforts, not just social care policy alone.

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