Back ground to the crisis in the social care industry

Back ground to the crisis in the social care industry

With the extended age limit of adults, the health care sector is enhancing clinical burden of the health care sector, in terms of both human resource as well as economic issues to provide adequate specialized care to adults (Glasby 2017). In this context, pay has formed a cornerstone of debates about social care in the care sector in UK. Continious low pay has contributed to the care sector’s position within the secondary labour market. It has been revealed that for improvement of the society care worker’s support is essential, however, the work conditions and pay makes the sector unattractive to the potential groups of care workers, as a result the improvement of the sector is hindered. The government funding cuts are making it unattractive for the care staffs, causing staff shortage an inadequate adult care services (Wray 2013). It has been revealed that rising staff costs and employee shortage also adds to pressure on the sector. It has been revealed that in UK’s care home industry, the staff cost, soaks up 60 % of revenues, are rising.  

With funding cuts underway, a huge number of people receive no formal support from private or public health care agencies. Since 2004, net funding on adult social care has been raised by only 0.1 % per year in real terms, a total of £43 million, while actual expenditure on the NHS has risen by £25 billion. Funding cuts are being highlighted to decrease funding on adult care by £300 million over 4 years (Care Quality Commission 2012). It has been estimated that actual spending on adult health and social care sector will be £250 million lower in 2014 than in 2004, whereas the number of older adults, i.e. people over 85 years has risen by two-thirds. Public sector commissioners are not paying adequately for the adult or geriatric care homes, with anaverage shortfall per resident is £60 per week, rising to £120 per week in South East England, estimated by Age UK (Imison and Bohmer 2013). It is forcing the care homes to take fees with additional private money, creating huge local discrepancies in local quantity and quality of care for adults and older people.

Aims

This research study aims to undertake an in-depth investigation on the pay system in the adults’ health and social care industry in UK. It would also aim to investigate the impact of the pay related issues upon the quality of health care provided to adults.

Objectives

Based on the aim and background of the research the following research objectives has been made, which would help to achieve expected research outcomes in a systematic way:

1. To investigate pay system in UK adult heath and social care industry
2. To investigate the causes of pay crisis in UK adult health and social care industry
3. To investigate whether pay in health and social care industry confirms to National Living wage (MLW)
4. To investigate government fund cut and its impact upon quality of adult health and social care
5. To propose recommendations for improving the situation

Relevance of the research in the professional field

The proposed research has been focused upon the economic system of UK adult health and social care sector, which is related to the health and social care professional field. Staff shortage and fund cut are the key issues faced by the current health and social care sector throughout UK. It is significantly affecting the quality of health and social care provided to adult population in care facilities throughout UK. Staff turnover is a consistent issue in adult social care with an overall turnover rate of 25.4 %, which is mainly due to the overloaded schedule and low wages, compared to the other sectors (Glasby 2017). The pay rate in the health and social care sector is a key subject of debate. It has been revealed that care worker medial pay rates are above the National Minimum Wages; however, it varies sector to sector, region and service types. Moreover, in many previous literatures, it has been revealed that in this sector, a wide range of workers are working substantially below the Living wages. Therefore, from the above academic information, it has been clarified that this current research would help to gather a significant knowledge about the issue, its causes, contributors, government’s role and the impact of the issue upon the care quality.

Aims and Objectives

This knowledge would help to understand the current status of the adult health and social care and the professional would be able to shape his career path in this sector. Moreover, the research would help to identify the key possible resolutions of the problems identified in the research. Therefore, the research will also help in enhancing the knowledge regarding government fund cut and initiatives leading towards the resolution of the solution (Imison and Bohmer 2013). It will help the health and social care professional to think critically and understand the innovative ways to deal with the issue or suggest the ways to mitigate the health and social care crisis, with the aim of improving the quality of adult health and social care services. The proposed research aims to investigate whether pay in health and social care industry confirms to National Living wage, which would lead to a key findings in this regard, helping in understanding the impact of the issue on the current health and social care professional field.

Government Fund cut

Six years of funding cuts to the local authority budgets, increasing demand for services and shortages of staff have left the adult health and social care system unable to meet their care users’ needs, who depend on it. It has been revealed that in several public and private elderly residents, there are not enough staffs to look after them. The staff cost is rising, which soaks up approximately 60 % of revenues. The minimum wage is rising to £7.20 an hour in April. With the enhanced workload on the care workers, cuts to the local authority budgets have been passed on to care homes. It has been revealed o local authority funding for 85 % of its residents, but according to Age UK, the charity, fees have been cut down by around a fifth since 2010 (Harrop 2011). Southern Cross was Britain’s biggest care homeowner once, which collapsed before 5 years as a result of rising rents and cuts to local authority funding.

It has been argued by the CEO of Care England that the industry is on the edge of disaster. He also claimed that without immediate action undertaken by government, there will be “a large scale corporate failure through the end of the financial year”. Government took an initiative to narrow down this gap through the inclusion of £72,000 cap, which can be used in the care home facilities; however, the funding was delayed last year (Slawson 2017). On the other hand, cash-strapped local authorities are hindering the social care access, based on the severity of the health issues. It has been estimated that the number of over 85s expected to double by 2032, which would cause all advance economies to allocate a wide proportion of health care cost to adult care.

The public sector commissioners are underpaying for adult care homes. Councils argued that it is highly disappointing that the government has not provided the additional cost for tackling the shortfalls in social care funding. The ministers confirmed to local authorities that council tax rises and money cut from housing schemes would be allocated to social care for creating a sustainable care framework for everyone, who needs social care. The LGA chairman claimed an urgent requirement for new additional government funding. The chairman argued that the council tax change would assist very few areas in the short term, which is not enough to relieve the financial burden on this sector; rather it would add an extra financial burden on the household (The King’s Fund 2017). It has been estimated that over the next two years, £900m extra needed to be included in this sector for significantly narrowing down the financial burden from social care.

Literature Review

The CEO of the local authority claimed that the tax change of household, which is promised by the government to be spent on older care, is not new money, rather the distribution of funding, which has already promised to councils. He said that simply redistributing the money from one sector, i.e. one issue to resolve another one will not tackle a systematic funding problem (Slawson 2017). The community secretary argued that the adding money to the social care sector from house hold tax increase is not the only answer to mitigate the issues, rather some council needed to put more efforts for reducing delays in discharging people from hospital beds due to the lack of adequate social care facilities available. He insisted the government to reconsider a planned corporation tax cut for plugging the social care funding gap.

The council tax accounts for approximately half of local authority income, the rest comes from central grants, which are cut off; on the other hand, the business rates are volatile also. Thus, it is not sure that how much care budget would be raised. The numbers of elderly people not getting care, paying for their care services by themselves recently exceed those getting council help by 4 to 1 (O’Grady 2017). In this context, the NHS head in England recommended that free bus passes with pension benefits for adults may address the problems in social care. Although these services would not mitigate the problem entirely. A funding cut by government of NHS providers for their work under the payment by results system from 2010/11 (BBC News 2017). Recently, the payments have been cut by more than 40 % for quarter of the medical care, provided by hospitals. The social care reports revealed that reductions in fees paid by local authorities along with other budget issues, including National Living Wage are reducing the incomes of residential and other adult care facility providers. It is making potential care workers to stay in the sector, while promoting more people to pay for their own care, due to cuts to local authorities. It has been revealed increasing funding gap within the inadequate system will reach at least £2.8 billion by 2019/20, shrinking the public spending to less than 1 % of GDP (Community Care 2017).

Based on the importance of the research topic, aim and objectives, the primary research method would be undertaken, for analyzing primary research data collected from the primary resources. In this context, the positivism research philosophy would be selected, as this philosophy supports primary research methods, by guiding the analysis of primary research data with the pre-existing scientific literatures and theories (Bergh and Ketchen 2011). In addition, the deductive research approach would be used for the research, as it helps to build research hypothesis at the beginning and promote the primary data collection and then analysis is done on the basis of the existing scientific research for analyzing and justifying the research hypothesis developed at the beginning of the research (Bernard 2011). The research design, which would be selected for this research study is the descriptive method of research, as it would help to improve the quality of research findings with the analysis of data in a wider context, while allowing the use of wide range of quantitative data collection methods.

Within the primary data collection method, both the qualitative and quantitative data collection methods are used, here quantitative would be done. For the quantitative data collection method, the survey would be used as the suitable research strategy (Creswell 2011). In this context, 100 adult health and social care workers from different health and social care agencies would be surveyed. Random sampling would be undertaken for the numerical data collected through the survey method.

All the ethical aspects would be considered through the research procedures, by following the Data protection act 1998, promoting human rights of the participants and using all the authentic and relevant data sources (Crouch and Pearce 2012).

The research is expected to meet its aims and objectives, while contributing in the continuous advancement in the scientific research on the health and social care sector. In addition, the research would also reveal the areas of improvement, thereby helping the health and social care professionals to understand and implement proper resolution strategies, to improve the pay structure of the health and social care sector in UK (Hussein 2010). The research findings are expected to reveal a current status and pay structure in UK adult health and social care sector. Analyzing the existing literature review, it is expected to have similar results from the research, i.e. a low wages provided to the care workers in adult health and social care sector. Whereas, in depth information from the government fund cut related information would also expected to be revealed from the study. It is also expected that the study findings would reveal whether the wages provided to the adult health and social care staffs confirms to national Living wage or not. Moreover, the research findings are expected to reveal such information, from which appropriate recommendations can be developed both for the improvement of the service quality along with the adaptation of skills by the health and social care professionals for combating with the pay structure in the sector.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be said that adult care is a key domain in health and social care sector. With increased demands and complex physical and mental health issues of older adults, the cost for advance and specified care is increasing. On the other hand, government funds are not increasing adequately to meet the progressive needs of the adult population in UK. In this context, the background of the study, research aim, objectives, methods used in the research, review of literature along with the expected research outcomes has been demonstrated, which has helped outlining the research, based on which the systematic procedure of the research would be undertaken.

An urgent attention from the government needed to be paid on the issue of funding cut and inadequate funding on the adult health and social care sector. In this context, initiative from the local authorities needed to be done for influencing government bodies to allocate new fresh cost for the improved care facilities for the older adults, instead of cutting cost from the council tax increase for households. More in depth analysis is needed to enhance accessibility to older care services, to meet their social care need and reduce the burden of longer hospital stay or private service cost payment by their own.

Reference List

BBC News., 2017, Councils angry at government’s social care offer – BBC News. [online] BBC News. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-38319342 [Accessed 17 Apr. 2017].

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Care Quality Commission, 2012. The state of health care and adult social care in England in 2011/12 (Vol. 763). The Stationery Office.

Community Care, 2017. The state of adult social care – Community Care. [online] Community Care. Available at: https://www.communitycare.co.uk/the-state-of-adult-social-care/ [Accessed 17 Apr. 2017].

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Crouch, C. and Pearce, J. 2012. Doing Research in Design – Page 68, 2^nd ed. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Glasby, J., 2017. Understanding health and social care. Policy Press.

Harrop, A., 2011. Care in crisis: causes and solutions. [online] Ageuk.org.uk. Available at: <https://www.ageuk.org.uk/Documents/EN-GB/Campaigns/Care%20in%20Crisis%20-%20FINAL.pdf?dtrk=true> [Accessed 17 Apr. 2017].

Hussein, S., 2010, Pay in adult social care in England. Social Care Workforce Periodical, 6.

Imison, C., and Bohmer, R. 2013. NHS and social care workforce: meeting our needs now and in the future. London: The Kings Fund.

O’Grady, S, 2017. SOCIAL CARE CRISIS: Funding shortage ‘will leave more people STRANDED in hospital’. [online] Express.co.uk. Available at: https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/760842/Social-care-crisis-funding-shortage-people-stranded-hospital [Accessed 17 Apr. 2017].

Slawson, N. 2017. UK social care: staff shortages put sector in crisis. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/mar/08/uk-social-care-crisis-staff-shortages [Accessed 17 Apr. 2017].

Slawson, N., 2017. UK social care: staff shortages put sector in crisis. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/mar/08/uk-social-care-crisis-staff-shortages> [Accessed 17 Apr. 2017].

The King’s Fund, 2017. Older people are paying the price for cuts to social care. [online] The King’s Fund. Available at: https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/press/press-releases/older-people-social-care-cuts [Accessed 17 Apr. 2017].

Wray, J., 2013. The impact of the financial crisis on nurses and nursing. Journal of advanced nursing, 69(3), pp.497-499.