#YoungCarersAwarenessDay

Today marks an important awareness day in our calendars that many may not be familiar with. The aim of #YoungCarersAwarenessDay is to raise public awareness of challenges faced by young people because of their caring role, and to campaign for greater support for young carers and their needs.  

While we want to highlight the importance and acknowledge the amazing work already being carried out by young people in caring roles, paid and unpaid, we also to raise the profile of care careers and engage with the younger generation to help combat the current the skills shortage.

Recent research from the Kings Fund regarding staff shortages in the home care sector has revealed some shocking statistics. Four in ten home care workers are leaving their role every year. In 2016/17 around 500 new home care agencies registered each quarter and 400 left the market - some figures that really illustrate the difficulties in ensuring quality care assistance is available to those that need it, which could be as many as one million over 65s by 2035. Last year we even heard horror stories of elderly people being turned away from care homes with spare beds due to staff shortages - a headline that really hit home and raised concern that this matter needed to be urgently addressed.

Brexit.

A term currently causing uncertainty, not just within care, however the industry could well be facing some difficult challenges post-Brexit. Recently we’ve learned that it’s a possibility Brexit could leave the UK short of 380,000 care workers by 2026, unless lower skilled roles can be filled with overseas workers, according to predictions from Global Future. Findings suggest that there is currently one care worker for every 3.4 people aged over 75, and to keep this ratio the same as the ageing population, the care sector will need to employ an additional 380,000 staff by 2026 – currently only adding around 18,000 British workers each year. With new immigration restrictions, and without a real drive in social care recruitment, it’s expected that the over-75s requiring care to care worker ratio could be as high as 4.3 by 2026.

Depending on the deal struck in Brexit negotiations, by 2037 the social care sector could lack between 350,000 and 1.1 million workers, and in such an extreme scenario, each UK care worker would need to look after a staggering and unsustainable 14 older people at any one time. The potential impact on care is huge. The Department of Health also warned last year that in a worst-case scenario, there could even  be 28,000 fewer workers in the care sector in England five years after leaving the European Union if employers were no longer able to recruit European Economic Area (EEA) staff, it says.

So how can we fix the problem?

One solution to help combat this growing gap between demand and supply could be to encourage more young men to work within the care industry. Currently, men make up just 18% of the social care workforce, an increase of only 2% in the past three years, and the average age of a care worker is 43, with a fifth being over 55. Perception needs to change too, research carried out last year revealed that 35% think that working in a care home is associated with being a ‘woman’s career’. Removing stereotypes is important and the gender-based stigma is hard to shake. It’s a fact that some male patients feel more comfortable to be cared for by a male carer, especially due to the intimacy involved, as well as the social aspects of care, and this is something that isn’t always an option currently.

It’s positive to hear that some good work is already underway to promote care careers to young males. Plymouth university are working towards raising awareness, and Queen’s University Belfast alongside housing and care provider Anchor, have been running campaigns to encourage more men into care work.

The introduction of robotics and AI into care can also present some form of solution. By highlighting the fact that robots can be used to free up resource of already time-strapped carers by carrying out menial tasks should be communicated as beneficial to those considering a career in care. Our recent robots and carers - working as one examined some of the advantages of introducing automation efficiencies, while reinforcing the fact that robots should never be seen as a replacement for carers, who possess the irreplaceable human touch and interaction. But robots can be used as aids to make the life of carers easier. Research from Mind found that 88% of care workers admitted to finding their role stressful, so this help and assistance could be welcomed by many.

The public perception about robots in care however is somewhat different. Results from a recent Randstad poll of over 2,500 discovered that 84% wouldn't trust a robot to provide health or social care. As technologies develop, hopefully we will discover some kind of medium which will be perceived as beneficial in terms of time-saving for carers and safer, trustworthy and more reliable by the public.

Working in care offers a huge range of benefits, regardless of gender or age. We need to help raise awareness of the positives to the future generation. If you were to imagine or put yourself in the position of someone receiving care it’s a powerful way to realise why it is so important. Job security, a sense of reward and ‘making a difference’, as well as the opportunity to progress up the career ladder within an organisation are a few of many reasons to become a carer. A career in care doesn’t necessarily require a lot of qualifications either, and there’s much more to come in terms of automation to help ease the burden for the current care workforce and allow more time to be spent enjoying caring for those who need it most.