Home care providers have warned the adult care system has begun to collapse as figures show more than 900 adult social care workers a day quit their job last year.
The charity, Skills for Care, released data to the BBC that revealed in 2015-16 about 338,520 adult care social workers left their roles, equal to 928 people leaving their job every day. At the time, there were more than 1.3 million people employed in the adult social care sector in England.
The figures showed that 60% left the adult social care sector altogether, while there was an estimated shortage of 84,320 care workers, meaning about one in every 20 care roles remained vacant.
The figures come as the UK Homecare Association wrote a letter to the prime minister warning of the crisis facing social care.
Mike Padgham, the chair of the UK Homecare Association, said:
“My biggest fear is that we will soon run out of capacity to provide care to those who cannot fund themselves. I agree wholeheartedly with Age UK’s warning that the social care system will begin to collapse this year, but I would go further and say that the system has already begun to collapse.”
According to a BBC report, the Skills for Care figures show that the industry has a staff turnover rate of 27%, which is nearly twice the average for other professions in the UK.
