A health service recruitment drive could end up ‘inadvertently’ diverting staff from social care services, the Scottish government admitted.

The campaign to recruit 1,000 more NHS healthcare support workers is part of a winter support plan unveiled by Humza Yousaf with the goal of ‘significantly reducing the number of delayed discharges’.

A pay rise for care staff announced in October still left a significant gap between comparable roles in the health service, prompting concerns staff will just be shifted from one part of the system to the other.

Trade union UNISON is calling for the government to fund a sign-on bonus for all new staff and a loyalty payment for workers in post.

Speaking today, social care minister Kevin Stewart said “golden hellos and golden handcuffs…could end up creating more problems than it resolves”.

“I think that is a very difficult thing to do," he told the Scottish parliament's Health, Social Care and Sport Committee. "It's something we could look at but in some regards I don’t necessarily think this is a solution.”

Social care lead John Mooney told healthandcare.scot pay, conditions and opportunities for career progression are generally poorer in social care and a move to the health service “resolves many of the problems”.

John Burns, NHS Scotland Chief Operating Officer, and Donna Bell, Scottish government Director of Mental Wellbeing and Social Care, wrote to regional health boards last month asking them to ‘immediately’ begin recruiting 1,000 new healthcare support workers with a ‘specific focus on Agenda for Change bands 3 and 4’.

The Scottish government’s winter support plan promised to increase care workers’ pay to £10.02 an hour, equivalent to the lower end of band 2 for NHS staff, which works out at an annual salary of £19,500.

Band 2 healthcare support worker roles in NHS boards are being advertised at £19,600-£21,600, with higher salaries for bands 3 and 4 roles.

The letter, seen by healthandcare.scot, continues: ‘It is essential that all of this increases capacity within local community systems and we are mindful that recruitment may inadvertently move staff from other sectors including care at home services and care homes.

‘Decisions – including the decision to recruit new staff to multidisciplinary teams – should be made in active consultation with Health & Social Care Partnership Oversight Groups, which have been stood up to manage community demand and the deployment of resources.’

Scottish Care Chief Executive Donald Macaskill last week warned of staff shortages in social care.

He told the Scottish parliament’s Covid-19 Recovery Committee:

“At the moment, the NHS and local authority partnerships are engaged in a massive recruitment drive. In the past week, a rural care home in Forth Valley reported to me that it has lost three nurses and four carers, all of whom have gone to the NHS in the local area. A care provider in Edinburgh has lost 15% of his home care staff, because they have gone to work with the local authority.

“We do not want to stop people from moving on, but if we pay the same amount of money to somebody who is a domestic member of staff in the NHS as we do to somebody who delivers professional, skilled care and is qualified and regulated, that lack of parity means that, no matter how much we give to the social care system, we will always bleed our talent and skills elsewhere.”

UNISON Scotland’s John Mooney said: “Members in third and private sector social care routinely tell us that they struggle at work due to a lack of power and control over their day to day working lives and that their pay is not high enough.

“Basically, moving to the NHS resolves many of the problems. There is obviously a higher rate of pay with more opportunities to advance both pay and their career in general, and they have the respect and strength at work that comes from working in a unionised workplace.

“UNISON is clear that fair work in social care will deliver for members in the sector but this is a medium to long term piece of work and won’t have the kind of immediate impact that we need to keep carers in care this winter.”

Scottish government minister Kevin Stewart said the pay rise to £10.02 an hour was a “significant increase in pay…and is a significant step towards delivering our commitment to improve fair work in social care.”

Mr Stewart added: “The Scottish government has committed to creating a National Care Service which will oversee the delivery of care, improve standards and, importantly, ensure enhanced pay and conditions for workers. 

“The consultation on this has now closed, and we look forward to analysing the feedback which will support us in improving the social care system in collaboration with key partners.”

 

Read more: NCS commissioning reforms ‘do not go far enough’; All but one council ‘underpaying’ for homecare; NHS to be "priority" for new social care tax revenues

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