Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Efford Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue. We were holding regular meetings with Norfolk and Suffolk MPs, the trust, the Care Quality Commission and NHS England, and with the new management team, that trust did appear to finally be turning things around. However, I am concerned to hear the points that my hon. Friend has raised. I am very happy to restart those meetings and will ask my office to arrange them as quickly as possible.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

8. What steps she is taking to increase staff recruitment and retention in the adult social care sector.

[The Minister for Social Care (Helen Whately)]

Care is a skilled profession, and I want care workers to get the support and recognition they deserve. This month, we took the next step in our ambitious care workforce reforms, publishing the first ever national career structure for the care workforce alongside our new nationally recognised care qualification.

[Clive Efford]

Ambitious care workforce reforms—it is all blah, isn’t it? We have had 14 years of Conservative Government, and we have a crisis in every area of the NHS. Job insecurity, poor working conditions and low pay—one in five care workers is living in poverty—are all reasons why we have a recruitment and retention crisis in social care. Is not the truth that that is a damning indictment of 14 years of Conservative Government, and the only thing that is going to sort out social care and the crisis in recruitment and retention is a general election?

[Helen Whately]

I am actually really shocked by the way the hon. Member referred to the care workforce, with terms like “It is all blah”—very shocking. I am determined that care workers should get the recognition they deserve. We have a 10-year plan for social care, and it is working: the care workforce grew by over 20,000 last year, vacancies in social care are down, and retention is up. We are reforming social care so that it works as a career. That is why, as I said a moment ago—I wish the hon. Member had been listening—we have introduced the first ever career pathway for social care workers and a new national care qualification.