A recruitment portal to get former care workers to return to the sector during covid-19 led to fewer than 50 people being employed.

This was despite nearly 800 potential staff being made available through the system and reports of services being cut back across the country as some areas had large numbers of workers shielding or self-isolating.

Scottish Care, which represents independent care providers, said part of the reason was the “high expectations” placed on frontline care workers for low levels of pay in return.

“The social care sector’s continuing recruitment challenges have again been evidenced during the response to covid-19 in that social care workers do not just walk into the sector and commence work,” they said.

More than 50,000 people who were previously on the care staff register were contacted by the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) in the early stages of the pandemic, with 2,500 expressing an interesting in coming back to the sector.

Figures provided to healthandcare.scot reveal nearly 800 pre-employment checks were carried out, resulting in 45 appointments since the portal went live on the 1^st April.

Placements in adult care homes made up the biggest portion with 26 people returning to work.

A separate letter to former social workers and social work students in their final year at university led to nearly 300 temporary workers being registered and 14 ultimately being employed.

Annie Gunner Logan, head of the Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland (CCPS), which represents third sector care organisations, said: “The recruitment portal was established to mitigate potential workforce shortages as a result of the pandemic and welcomed by CCPS members.

"However, due to redeployment, lower than expected sickness absence, reduced competition and the positive messages about social care many of our members reported increased interest in a career in social care and effective, local recruitment campaigns leading to some organisations being fully staffed for the first time in many years.

“This seen a reduced need to use the portal although some of our members have successfully recruited from it and hope to continue to do so as lockdown eases and services return to normal capacity.

“CCPS will continue to work with our members and national partners to ensure that the voluntary sector social care workforce is recognised for its skill and compassion in improving the lives of individuals requiring support and is seen as a positive career choice with fair and equitable pay, terms and conditions across the sector.”

Scottish Care, which helped set up the online portal and, said the platform had been useful for getting returners into the sector as quickly as possible.

“This did highlight however the complexity of the care and support worker role and the speed to which staffing levels changed during the most pressured weeks of the crisis,” a spokesperson said.

“The social care sector’s continuing recruitment challenges have again been evidenced during the response to covid-19 in that social care workers do not just walk into the sector and commence work.

“When staff were needed critically they were deployed most successfully from local health boards and other local care organisations and held the necessary experience and knowledge to deliver the care required.”

They added that the way the sector is organised made it difficult to quickly reallocate workers in this way.

“Therefore, redeployment of care and support workers would be beneficial but comes with great difficulties especially when high expectations are placed on a low paid workforce.”

An SSSC spokesperson said: “We’re pleased that the worst-case scenario of big staff shortages didn’t happen and most services were able to fill any COVID-19 related vacancies in their usual way, including redeployment, agencies and support from health and social care partnerships.

“It was important we had contingency plans to support staffing at the start of the pandemic and we’ll continue to work with social services when considering the longevity of the recruitment portal.”

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