Breakfast Seminar

“It’s hard to remain optimistic,” Simon Morris of Jewish Care told Care Conversation delegates. “Although there are always opportunities, it does feel as though we’re heading towards a very difficult situation. What we really need to be doing as a sector is raising the debate. We’re the fifth richest country in the world and yet our social care system is creaking around the edges.”

Of the immense challenges facing the sector, money was clearly the most acute, he stated, while another was an aging workforce, with social care “just not seen as an attractive option” for young people. However, the hope was that enough people with positions of power and influence could eventually shift the debate in the right direction, he said. 

In terms of funding, both central and local government still tended to regard the elderly as “some sort of utility that can be turned off”, said John Strowbridge of Avery Healthcare. “They’re not, obviously, and there’s going to be more and more of them.” What was needed was something resembling the American approach to senior living, he told the seminar – “with people making an active choice about where they want to end their days”.

“We need to be creative about how we think about health and social care in the UK,” stressed Shay Ramalingam of Octopus Investments. “We’re going through a cycle, and we are going to see businesses go bust. But the right private investment is a force for good, and the right attitude is key – not just from staff and the management team but from investors willing to take a long-term view.”

On the question of how much of an impact the living wage was likely to have, Simon Morris told delegates that it was a ‘massive’ issue. “We have a strategy of paying above the minimum wage to attract the best quality staff, so it’s going to have a huge impact. We’re struggling as to how we’re going to make the numbers work for us.”

Staff would ‘very quickly’ work out the differential between their pay and that of maintenance and kitchen staff, for example, and would “want that put back in”, added John Strowbridge. “Unless we start getting increases from local authorities then there are going to be dire consequences for some organisations. If you’ve got local authority clients then you need to put a serious case to them – not just accept a 0% increase.”

The ‘compensating factor’ of implementing a fee increase was only a small part of the way to address these issues, he added. “If you go to 100% private pay, for example, then you’re not compensating for the local authority fees so you can be more competitive.”

The risk of this model, however, was the creation of a two-tier system, warned Simon Morris. “I can totally understand it financially, but I do really worry about it from a societal point of view. All our beds are allocated on the basis of need, but the more businesses that go 100% private – which they may well need to in order to survive – the more scary the ramifications become.”

On the subject of a quality workforce, staffing ratios did not always necessarily point to “things like attitude and all the other intangibles”, said Shay Ramalingam. “It goes back to the importance of getting the culture of the organisation right, which means having the right management team in place. We’ve had problems attracting people, but I’m more concerned about getting the right people in the right roles.”

So how should the sector go about attracting young, dynamic staff? “We need to get positive, energetic people in from outside the sector, but it’s hard to know how to get the economics right,” acknowledged Shay Ramalingam. “How do we compete with other, more glamorous sectors? Social care is hard work.”

“We operate good quality care homes and we’re able to pay a little bit more than our competitors because of our 100% private position,” said John Strowbridge. “But you do need to be continually coaching your managers. A good care home attracts good staff – that’s just the way it goes.”

“It’s about value-based leadership, and making sure that staff feel engaged,” said Simon Morris. “I think that anything we can do as a sector to further that is vital.”