Page 57 - Regional Employment & Skills Plan

55
An ageing workforce in Health and Social Care is seen as a critical factor with a high leaver/retirement rate which is exacerbated by the limited number of young new entrants to the labour force to counteract the loss of qualified and experienced staff.
Factors contributing to the low number of new entrants include;
• Attractiveness of the sectors as an employer, poor perceptions regarding pay/conditions, etc. Coupled with a lack of awareness of the range of job roles within the sectors.
• Lack of awareness of progression and entry routes into the health and social care, early years and childcare sectors.
• ‘Professional boundaries’ are seen as restricting access to opportunities
• Essential skills assessments are a potential barrier to recruitment of individuals into care based Apprenticeships,
in particular returnees to the labour market and individuals who may previously not engaged in education.
• ‘Myths’ around the requirement for individuals to be over the age of 18 to work in the sector to be addressed
including a greater understanding of what roles and activities can be undertaken.
Contracting and pay terms are also creating significant issues within the sector. In the Health sector, inconsistencies in the rates of pay for Apprenticeships are creating challenges for health boards and negatively affecting both the ability to recruit and more generally the morale of staff. Furthermore, the reliance on agency and locum staff at high rates of pay is hindering the ability to recruit other staff to some roles, this is also impacting the finance available for the recruitment of Apprentices.
Terms and conditions within the Health sector can often be perceived as better than those within Social Care, this leads to social care support workers moving into the Health sector once qualified putting additional pressures on the Social Care sector.
Suitability of Skills Provision
Workplace training is seen as essential to the development of the sector, classroom based learning alone is not fit for purpose especially within domiciliary care. Furthermore, wider skills, values and core competencies are seen as more important to accredited qualifications in some cases, however, there remains a clear need for this in terms of professional regulation and regulatory compliance.
Further evidence indicates that the availability of training is highly dependent on geographic location. This is worsened by a lack of availability of good quality distance and e-learning opportunities and flexible learning provision i.e. part time learning offered at different times of the day, identified within some professional areas. Furthermore, regional arrangements regarding the placement of learners within the health care system restricts opportunities to utilise some providers.
The qualifications and courses offered to people who wish to develop their career in care have been subject of a review by Qualifications Wales. The findings have been welcomed by Social Care Wales and the wider sector as highlighting key challenges which need to be tackled, namely:
• the effectiveness of the present models of assessment in determining the knowledge, skills and understanding of learners;
• the currency of some qualifications, particularly those qualifications taken by learners aged 14-16;
• the extent to which qualifications prepared learners for progression to higher education;
• the coverage of certain key aspects of learning for different areas of work, for example in relation to dementia
care, domiciliary care and play work in the context of childcare; and
• the extent to which qualifications prepared learners effectively for working in a bilingual nation.
Regional Employment & Skills Plan South West & Mid Wales Sector Profiles