Facing the Crisis: Recruitment Challenges in the UK Health and Social Care Sector

Is this ever going to improve? One wonders. Majority of health and social providers are struggling to recruit the right staff and keep them. This crisis is not just for the providers, but for workers in the field, prospective workers, families, patients and the public. We are all in this together.

Not having enough staff, the right staff or supported staff means services do not run smoothly or run at all. You just need to walk into any A & E department to see the gravity of this challenge.

Meet Ade, a single mum who works as a domestic care worker. Lately she has been experiencing unexplained headaches that keep her awake at night. She works 6 days week with her shift starting at 8am and finishing at 10pm. She has tried making a GP appointment but each time she calls the lines are busy. She hopes she will be able to secure an appointment when she gets a day off in the week.   

She can’t ask for time off because due to a shortage of staff, no one will be able to support her patients. She has also seen how the organisation treats other colleagues negatively when they asked for time off to attend to health needs or family emergencies. The exhaustion due to lack of sleep and continued headaches took a toll on Ade and she collapsed while preparing to go to work. Her 16-year-old daughter called an ambulance and she was taken to A & E with extremely high blood pressure.

This is unfortunately the reality for a lot of care workers. Despite her unwavering commitment, Ade feels the strain of understaffing and the burden to continue caring at the expense of her own health. Further highlighting a systemic issue that affects not only staff and patients, but also the families of the workers too.

According to an article by The Kings Fund, the NHS vacancy rate was 8.4% or 121000 full-time equivalent roles in sept 2023 and the vacancy rate for social care was 9.9% or 152000. Full time equivalent roles. In comparison to the overall UK vacancy rate of 3.4% in 2022/23 both the health and social care rates are relatively high. Evidence also show that retaining existing staff is an issue, with 10.7% 154000 leaving NHS roles and 28.3% 390000 leaving social care roles in the same period 2022/23.

Tackling this problem requires a multi-faceted approach which does not only focus on filling the vacant roles. It needs all of us. By understanding the issues and advocating for change this will ensure a resilient workforce and supportive workplaces where people want to work and not leave.

It is often the small changes that one day become the big changes and it is the changes that money cannot buy that people always remember.

What small changes can you make today to create supportive work environments where people want to come to work for the long term?  

I believe tackling retention will help with the recruitment challenge. What’s your take?

Let’s hear your voice and your experiences.