Page 33 - Pembrokeshire Skills Report 2024

Current Landscape
When looking into the data for Health & Social Care
it is prudent to look back to pre-pandemic and not
make assumptions based on the disruption this
cased during 2020 & 21. Therefore, looking back to
2018/19 for comparable staffing levels is prudent.
Health and Social Care is one of the largest
employment sectors within the South West Wales
region employing over 46,000 workers, with Care
Workers and Nurses being the highest volume jobs.
However, jobs numbers have been in decline since
2018 (over 8% drop) equating to over 4,000 less
people employed in the sector across the region.
The NHS being the largest single employer, but
94% of the employers in the sector are small or
micro and these make up a large share of other
important health requirement services such as
Dentistry, Care, Welfare and Cleaners etc, most of
which are showing a decline in jobs.
In Pembrokeshire 15% of Health & Social Care jobs
are occupied by Care and Home Care workers 18%
from nursing professions. Although Nursing
numbers have stayed relatively consistent in fact
showing year on year increases, the reverse can be
said for Care Workers, since 2018 the county has
43% less Care Workers equating to over 780 less
workers. Residential, Day and Domiciliary Care
Managers and Proprietor jobs are also showing
decline (45% less than 2018) indicating that Care
Home closures may be driving some of this loss in
jobs. Job volumes in Care are at the lowest level in
the county since 2006 with a growing over 65
population, this trend needs to be reversed.
There were over 400 unique job positions
advertised in 2023 for Care roles (the most
advertised role in the sector), on average these
roles were advertised up to 4 times before they
were filled, indicating there is a strong need for
more workers in this area.
Other hard to fill roles are Nurses and specialist
roles being advertised between 8–14 times before
they are filled.
Health & Social Care
With an ageing population across the region,
(the population now at age 65 and above is
over 26%) this can potentially have multiple
impacts on the sector in terms of the reduction
of the next generation talent pool, filling the
retirement gaps and managing to deliver key
H&SC services to an older demographic which
will likely place extra burden on the services.
Couple this with recent reports of waiting lists
being the highest on record for Wales 1 (Figure
1) and lagging a long way behind England,1
skills & recruitment needs to be placed at the
heart of any measure to mitigate these risks.
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Although Pandemic effects can be attributed to
the increased waiting times, we can also see a
direct correlation between waiting time
increases and the 7.4% reduction of H&SC staff
in Wales since 2018, this does not imply cause
and effect, but it is a contributing factor.
Figure 1
1 NHS Wales waiting lists highest on record - BBC News
LMI Data: Lightcast 2024