The East Riding of Yorkshire is a unitary authority area with residents living in a substantial geographical area. Large parts of the area are rural and urban conurbations are remote from larger centres of population. Our care and support sector is entirely dependent on a skilled and valued workforce to deliver quality services to our most vulnerable citizens.
We have long recognised that the local health and care workforce needs to grow from within the local community. There are shortages of skilled workers in every area of health and care support. Workforce shortages have become more acute and continue to undermine our efforts as a system to deliver quality care and support.
Workforce Intelligence data can be sourced from Skills for Care: Workforce Intelligence. The most up-to-date information can be accessed by clicking the image.
Here in the East Riding we have been proactive and established an initiative to address some of the challenges in recruitment and retention across the whole of the social care and health sector.
Our Choose Care initiative works closely with our care providers and partners to identify ways of increasing the supply of workers in the care sector and includes strategies to sustain and enhance careers in care.
Moving forward, as we transform local care and support services there are requirements for a different mix of skills, and we are developing how we see the workforce of the future. We are keen to have a dialogue with our providers to ensure that we work collaboratively in developing the workforce that is needed for the new environment.
The Social Care Academy is operated by the East Riding of Yorkshire Council’s Learning and Skills (Social Care) Team. It is dedicated to offering and providing quality learning experiences and resources, which enable the Adult Social Care workforce, both Council and Care Sector Providers, to learn, develop and grow.
A skilled and knowledgeable adult social care workforce enables the provision of quality Service User focused services that have a positive impact on people’s lives. As well as the traditional face-to-face courses and events, we also offer a range of extended provision such as online resources, blended learning, eLearning, Self-Study Guides and Virtual Classroom sessions. We will develop and grow our offer for the Adult Social Care Sector so that it meets the challenges of providing quality service user focused services both now and in the future.