In order to help ease pressures on the health and social care sector due to staff shortages, the NHS is planning to send representatives to India with a view to returning with new recruits.
The sector has become more reliant on international workers, especially as the local workforce has left the sector for better paid jobs in the service industry.
2022 saw a record low in terms of staffing for the care sector. Skills for Care data revealed a decrease of about 3% (i.e. 50,000 posts) in the number of filled roles in social care in 2021/22.
Further, the vacancy rate hit an all-time high of 10.7%, increasing 52% to 165,000 vacant posts.
It has been reported that four out of five UK jobs pay more than social care positions.
With this data in mind, the NHS will be providing £10,000 for the three-day delegation as an alternative to conducting online interviews.
The trip will be to a south-western Indian state – Kerala – and is designed to “develop workforce relationships”.
The delegation itself is a collaboration between the West Yorkshire Integrated Care System (WY ICS) and Health Education England (HEE).
Hopefully this mission will be successful and bring to the UK some much needed additions to the health and social care workforce.
