Response to DHSC Care workforce pathway for adult social care: call for evidence

30 May 2023

Dear Sir or Madam,

As the specialist regulator for social work in England, we welcome the opportunity to comment on the Department of Health and Social Care’s (‘the Department’s’) proposals to reform the workforce pathway for adult social care.

Consultation feedback

We are not providing answers to the consultation questions provided by the Department. Instead, we are offering comments on some areas of the care workforce pathway. These are the areas that may intersect with, or impact on, our role and work as a regulator. It also starts to explore areas for further discussion with the Department.

Pathways and roles

We recognise the vital role of the social care workforce in providing safe, and person-centred support to enable people to have choice, control and quality of life. We welcome the introduction of a care workforce pathway and recognise the consistency it will bring to the sector. We note that the tree diagram included in the consultation document identifies registered managers and deputy registered managers, with a secondary branch to ‘registered workforce’. We would welcome further clarity on what roles the registered workforce encompasses.

We also welcome further clarity on the Department’s intentions around the registration and/or regulation of the 4 proposed pathway roles in the future.

Care Certificate qualification

The proposed new Care Certificate qualification is a welcome solution to ensuring consistency in standards in adult social care. We look forward to understanding further the Department’s plans for the delivery and oversight of the required training.

We were pleased to see the Department’s commitment to considering how professional frameworks for social workers and other regulated roles might interact with this pathway.

We look forward to sharing our experience with the Department throughout the development period.

Given the Department’s desire to create parity between equivalent roles in health and adult social care and a more agile workforce, we are eager to understand more about career progression beyond the proposed social care pathway. And whether that might include routes into regulated professions, such as social work. We would welcome the opportunity to work with the Department to ensure that the pathway and qualification requirements provide an appropriate foundation to prepare care workers, should they wish to progress to a career in social work. This could include movement between adults and children’s social care. We would therefore encourage the Department to discuss its plans with the Department for Education to ensure alignment with the proposals set out in Stable Homes: Built on Love. It may also be beneficial to consider how apprenticeships may support the proposed career pathways for social care workers. We approve apprenticeship courses for social workers and would be happy to share our experiences with the Department.

Frameworks and values

We understand that the Department will consider how professional frameworks for social workers, nurses and other regulated roles might interact with this pathway throughout the development period. Similarly, the Department has proposed a universal set of values for the whole adult social care workforce. Given the complexities of mapping multiple frameworks and creation of new values for the whole workforce, we would welcome further clarity on how and where these values and frameworks would be applied.

I hope the Department finds this feedback helpful.

Yours sincerely

Colum Conway
Chief Executive