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This guide draws on a study which aimed to begin developing a care work-related quality of life tool for the adult social care workforce in England. We asked what matters most for care workers’ quality of life at work, how it was supported by employers and what staff would find helpful in the future. These findings are summarised here, along with recommendations for actions. Our findings come from focus groups and interviews with frontline care workers (n=11), national level stakeholders involved in social care (n=12) and a consensus survey of their views and those of other experts in adult social care (n=35).\ud The research was undertaken at a time of unprecedented pressure on the social care workforce in England: the COVID19 pandemic. Like the NHS, social care has been on the front line of the pandemic. However, unlike the NHS, social care is not a unified workforce with a professional identity. Social care is delivered by around 18,200 independent providers and many of its workforce are low-paid and under-valued. Turn-over within the sector is high and recruitment challenging, even for those with professional registration, such as social workers. Understanding and supporting people’s quality of life at work is paramount if we want to retain skilled staff and ensure the best outcomes for those they care for.

Migrant workers have been vital in helping to fill labour gaps locally and regionally and across different types of social care services in the UK over the last few decades. Brexit and the UK’s decision to end free movement for EEA workers was expected to bring significant new challenges to the sector as a whole, and homecare in particular. In 2019, we launched a two-wave expert (Delphi) survey to explore what the future role and composition of this workforce could look like after Brexit within the context of broader sectoral challenges. In March 2020, the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic hit the UK and created unprecedented challenges for social care. The second (final) round of the survey was conducted in the summer of 2020. It set out to identify points of consensus about major considerations associated with recruitment and retention in homecare in the context of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit. This short report summarises the second-round results of the expert survey and sets out some primary considerations and policy directions for the homecare sector at a time of uncertainty.

Several factors associated with turnover identified in this review can be controlled or influenced by care providers. These include managerial support, organisational culture, work organisation, and adequate equipment to ensure health and safety at work. \ud Therefore, one of the critical findings of this review is the need for the sector to be able to offer ‘quality jobs’ in order to improve recruitment and retention; this includes, but not exclusive to, ensuring decent pay and terms of employment, job security, and quality of the working environment. \ud Another important message of the review is that social care needs better systems to support care providers in creating and offering quality jobs. In particular, there is a need to reconsider how services are commissioned and funded by local authorities, acknowledging the employment implications of funding constraints and commissioning practices. \ud The current situation of significant job losses in some industries (particularly hospitality and retail) during COVID-19 might offer a unique opportunity to redistribute the workforce. For the sector to attract and retain available workers due to such redistributions, social care urgently needs both a financial and image boost. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the social care workforce is still unfolding. It will need to be analysed in the ever-changing context of government policies and local implementation in the coming months.

This Policy Brief outlines early findings from a new study of migrant labour in England’s homecare sector led by Professor Shereen Hussein at the University of Kent. The study forms part of the wider Sustainable Care: connecting people and systems research programme, and draws on:\ud • A review of existing evidence about migrant care workers in the UK\ud • A survey of 32 people with expertise and knowledge of social care and migration, focused on issues of\ud demand and supply\ud • Interviews with 25 migrant homecare workers\ud • Ongoing comparative analysis of the sustainability of migrant care work in eight countries, to be reported\ud separately.\ud Data were collected, in 2019-2020, at a time of uncertainty associated with the UK’s departure from the European Union, its future immigration system, and ongoing challenges in adult social care.

In 2019, as part of a study on Migrant care workers in the UK, we launched a Delphi Survey to generate possible scenarios to guide future statistical modelling of the migrant home care workforce in the UK. The aim of the modelling will be to explore what the future role and composition of this workforce could look like after Brexit, within the context of wider sectoral challenges. The present report summarises the responses received in Round 1 of the survey, which were collected in the first phase of the larger study.

Social workers (SWs) provide emotional and practical support to vulnerable service users who are likely to suffer from emotional trauma and mental health conditions. Stress and burnout levels are reported to be high among SWs, however, little is known about their relationships with different characteristics. The current article utilises unique and large dataset (n = 3786) on SWs working in adults and children’s services to examine factors associated with burnout. Employing job-demand/resources model and structural equations modelling, we highlight the varying significant impact of work-engagement, administrative support and work experience as moderating factors to burnout across adult and children service specialism in this sample.

Recruiting and retaining quality care staff is one of the main challenges facing the care sector. The home care workforce has one of the highest rates of turnover and vacancy rates in the British economy. About 15% of those employed in the home care workforce are migrant workers, with large regional variations (the per- centage is considerably higher in London and the South East). The demand for home care workers is likely to increase due to population ageing and growing demand for long term care.\ud • The UK’s referendum on European Union membership in June 2016 produced a 52% vote for ‘leave’, and negotiations are currently under way on the conditions for ‘Brexit’. It is likely that the outcomes of these will fundamentally alter existing policies, rules and patterns of workforce migration, while the free movement of labour from the EU / EEA will end. In this case, and with the current level of migrant workers in the care sector, existing UK work visa schemes would be unable to satisfy demand.\ud • This Policy Perspective provides insight from expert contributors on these issues (based on a Round Table discussion on 19th June 2018) and makes recommendations relevant to policymakers, care sector employers and researchers in the Sustainable Care programme. It considers the potential advantages and disadvan- tages of existing work visa and migrant worker schemes from the perspective of the home care sector and highlights some of the risks associated with restricted migrant workers’ rights post-Brexit.