Responding to Skills for Care’s report ‘The state of the adult social care sector and workforce in England’, Danny Mortimer, chief executive of NHS Employers, said:

“Social Care is an essential component to creating healthy and productive communities. The neglect of social care provision and the people it relies on is a growing risk to the health and wealth of our nation.  

“So it is very welcome to see a small increase in the size of the social care workforce over the last year, as well as a drop in the vacancy rate, which makes up for the decreases we saw in the year previous.  

“But as the projections in the report suggest, we will need 25% more posts (440,000) by 2035 if the number of adult social care posts grow proportionally to the projected number of people aged 65 and over in the population.  

“Skills for Care are to be congratulated for the leadership they are showing in developing a workforce plan for the social care sector. We know the difference this has made for the NHS, and NHS leaders will be pleased to see the wheels being put in motion as it will help identify the long-term staffing needs of adult social care and hopefully make clear where further government support is needed.”