NHS leaders have urged the government to implement a national care worker minimum wage of £10.50 an hour with immediate effect as the service struggles to retain staff.
They are warning that without an increase above the hourly wage seen across many other industries, including that paid to staff working in the retail sector, which in recent years has overtaken social care on wages, the social care sector in England will “continue to haemorrhage staff”.
The NHS Confederation has written to prime minister Boris Johnson, warning that their social care counterparts simply do not have “the financial headroom…to respond to the labour market pressures they are facing.”
Health leaders fear that their colleagues in social care have an impossible task as they attempt to shore up huge staff vacancies with their hands tied behind their backs on pay, against a backdrop of a cost of living crisis.
They also warn of the real risk that the more competitive levels of pay offered by the NHS for similar roles could see an ever-widening gulf in remuneration between health and social care.
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A decade ago, said the Confederation, the average hourly wage for a care worker was 13p more than those working in the sales and retail sector; but by last year this had plummeted and an inverse trend in wages saw social care workers paid around 21p less than those working in supermarkets.
NHS leaders believe that the lack of staff available to social care services will further exacerbate waiting times in the health service and drive demand for NHS services ever higher.
The Confederation said the government has previously acknowledged that a workforce strategy for social care was required and in February 2022 placed care workers on the shortage occupation list to support overseas recruitment, but this has not been enough to prevent social care staff leaving the service in droves.
Matthew Taylor, who was appointed to be chief executive of the NHS Confederation in April last year, said there was a risk of very serious damage to the social care sector without change: “Healthcare leaders are sounding the alarm and sending a clear message to government that unless social care workers are paid a national care worker minimum wage, there is at real risk of irreparable damage to the sector.
“We are seeing the impact of this heightened pressure across the NHS already, with far too many patients having to stay in hospital longer than needed because of inadequate social care provision locally.
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“We urgently need the government to take decisive action to fully fund this minimum wage increase which should be distributed through local authorities, to ensure funding reaches the front line, does not impact self-funders’ cost of care, and alleviates these severe staffing challenges.”
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