Welcome to Retention and Sustainability of Social Care Workforce (RESSCW)
Staff turnover and job vacancy rates are persistently high in UK social care. Understanding the drivers of staff retention and motivators of care staff is important to enable the sector to provide sustainable, high-quality services and meet increasing demand.
This project, which runs between April 2019 and March 2022, is funded by the Health Foundation Efficiency Research Programme, led by the University of Kent and supported by the strategic body for social care workforce development, Skills for Care. It aims to help social care providers, commissioners, regulators and policy-makers understand the specific organisational and individual drivers of staff retention in the social care sector by exploring:
- What specific characteristics social care workforce have and how committed they are to their jobs compared to workers in other low-wage service industries?
- Why there are differences in retention rates between social care providers and between social care and other low-wage service industries?
- Why care workers decide to leave their job, and why some job leavers choose to leave the social care industry altogether?
We will answer these questions by analysing existing data from national surveys and large datasets, primarily: the UK Quarterly Labour Force Survey; the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings; the Employer Skills Survey; the National Minimum Dataset for Social Care (NMDS-SC); the Skills for Care survey of individual employers and personal assistants; and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) health and social care provider register.
As well as carrying out the data analysis, we will consult and work closely with adult social care stakeholders, including providers, care users, care workers, family carers, commissioners, regulators and policy makers. We will organise annual workshops across the country to gather views on emerging findings and generate examples of ‘good working conditions/quality jobs’ in the social care industry, and pathways to achieve these nationally.
The team brings together social policy researchers, health economists and labour economists from the University of Kent, University College London and City University:
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Dr Florin Vadean (PSSRU, University of Kent) |
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Prof Shereen Hussein (PSSRU, University of Kent) |
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Dr Stephen Allan (PSSRU, University of Kent) |
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Dr Katerina Gousia (PSSRU, University of Kent) |
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Dr Agnes Turnpenny (PSSRU, University of Kent) |
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Ann-Marie Towers (CHSS, University of Kent) |
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Dr Eirini Saloniki (CHSS, University of Kent) |
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Prof Alex Bryson (Department of Social Science, UCL) |
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John Forth (Cass Business School, City University of London) |
- "Job quality and staff retention in the social care sector" - New blog post from RESSCW project team member Florin Vadean available on the PSSRU blog page.
- The Health Foundation speaks to Professor Shereen Hussein about the RESSCW project in this news piece 'Stemming the tide: retaining the social care workforce'
- Retention and Sustainability of Social Care Workforce (RESSCW) project – very productive 1st Steering Group Meeting
For more information about this project, please contact:
Dr Florin Vadean, Research Fellow, Personal Social Services Research Unit, University of Kent, Canterbury
Prof Shereen Hussein, Associate Director, Personal Social Services Research Unit, University of Kent, Canterbury
You can also follow our progress on #resscw on the PSSRU twitter account: @pssru_kent
“Retention and Sustainability of Social Care Workforce (RESSCW)” is part of the Health Foundation’s Efficiency Research Programme. The Health Foundation is an independent charity committed to bringing about better health and health care for people in the UK.