Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department has taken to help ensure long term career development for people employed in social care; and what assessment he has made of the correlation between career development and (a) recruitment and (b) retention of social care staff.

Evidence conducted by the sector shows that access to training and development can have a positive impact on recruitment and retention. Research undertaken by Skills for Care last year found that providing training reduces care worker turnover from 37% to 29%. To help raise career prospects in social care, the Government announced new investment of at least £500 million in new workforce measures over three years, delivering new career pathways, hundreds of thousands of training opportunities and wellbeing support.

The Government will continue to support a wide range of apprenticeships within social care. These provide opportunities for people to train when they join the sector and options to progress onto higher apprenticeships into roles including social work and nursing.