Written question WQ85661

We recognise the pressure on care providers, care homes, and staff at this time. Long standing challenges with recruitment and retention in the sector have been exacerbated by the pandemic. Staff have worked tirelessly though the pandemic and we are all indebted to them for the care they have provided for our most vulnerable citizens.

We are continuing our national TV and social media recruitment campaign to increase workforce capacity and we will be completing further media activity to promote work in social care over the coming months. We have added additional resource to Social Care Wales for them to increase targeted recruitment work – identifying groups of people who may not have previously considered a career in social care.

We are urgently considering other action to support the workforce and recognise pay and conditions of employment are crucial in attracting people to work in the sector and have delivered on our commitment to the Real Living Wage for social care workers early in this term.

We are working closely with health boards and local authorities to support shared endeavours to identify means to improve the flow of people through the system and into care services in the community, where these are required and reduce the pressure and burden on care homes. While enhancing the capacity of community services is a key objective, this situation remains very challenging.

We know local authorities and health boards have made their own arrangements to provide staff to assist in care homes in the private sector where this has been required. Principles of good working practices for this ‘mutual aid’ were agreed during the first wave of the pandemic and are published on the Social Care Wales website.