Page 55 - Regional Employment & Skills Plan

Employers Voice107 Significant Challenges
• Costs
Recruitment Difficulties
• Difficulty recruiting staff that want to work more than 16 hours per week across all roles.
• Technicians
• Sales executives
• Service advisers
4.6 Health and Social Care
Drivers of Change
• Competition
Barriers to Training
• No apparent barriers to training
55
The health and social care sector is an important element of the foundational economy as it supports health and wellbeing across all age groups. The social care sector can be defined as “Social care supports people of all ages with certain physical, cognitive or age-related conditions in carrying out personal care or domestic routines. It helps people to sustain employment in paid or unpaid work, education, learning, leisure and other social support systems. It supports people in building social relationships and participating fully in society.”108
The health and social care sector within the region has been identified as an area of significant growth for the region due to a rapidly aging population and a demographic profile which has a greater number of older people than the UK average. The care sector is highly regulated placing a significant emphasis on qualification requirements for staff.
The health care sector provides a more dedicated and specialised care and supports a number of high skill high wage jobs. The sector is primarily within the public sector and has therefore seen limited spending growth however demands on services remain and will increase in line with an aging population. There are also significant links with the life science including areas of personalised care and new and innovative treatment techniques.
The skills needs identified within the health and social care sector include:
• E-health and digital care skills,
• Domiciliary care,
• Dementia care,
• Early years care.
101 RLSP Large Company Survey & electronic survey (April- June 2016)
108 Accessed electronically via http://www.ilis.co.uk/uploaded_files/dilnott_report_the_future _of_funding_social_care_july_2011.pdf
Regional Employment & Skills Plan South West & Mid Wales Foundational Economy