The head of a home care provider says demonstrating the "positive stories" of working in social care would attract more young people into the sector.

Lynn Laughland, of HRM Homecare, said closer links with colleges and other education centres were needed to ensure “a lot more people view [care] as a career pathway and a career opportunity”.

More than 200,000 people are employed in the care sector in Scotland but thousands more staff will be needed in the years ahead to meet increasing demand for support.

HRM, which was founded in 1994, employs around 300 staff and provides care to more than 800 people across central Scotland.

The company has just finished the first round of a new project with the Prince’s Trust that aims to encourage more young people to consider a long-term career in care.

It saw five young adults complete a five-week training programme run by HRM and go on to be offered full-time positions with the company.

Speaking to healthandcare.scot, Ms Laughland said the sector “really requires a lot more people to view it as a career pathway and a career opportunity” and it was important to highlight “positive stories” in care.

“Actually, the opportunities in the care sector are enormous. It's not just frontline delivery of care…we're running organisations that have HR teams, IT, finance, there's a whole range of career opportunities available in the sector.

“External providers like mine really want to collaborate, work more closely together with those organisations [colleges], because that will help us all resolve the challenges together,”

Ms Laughland said many of the recruitment challenges were “directly related” to pay, which is largely determined by central and local government. 

She added: “So I think we need some levelling up with the NHS, I think that would be a good starting point, because obviously you've got staff moving between sectors.”

In October the Scottish government increased care workers’ pay by around 5% above the Living Wage to £10.02 an hour.

However providers’ organisations have raised concerns about wages still being higher for comparable health service roles and warned a slow rollout could see some staff not get the pay rise until after Christmas

Ms Laughland said the funding was “coming slowly”, adding: “Well, to be honest, I think that there needs to be more recognition of the complexity of care that care workers are providing in local communities and the types of support that they are already giving to people in their own homes.

“Actually, what I think we will see is an upskilling requirement for people caring for people at home.

“And I think it's quite clear to see that there'll be less of a difference between roles [in the NHS and care]…We need to recognise that care providers have been dealing with complex care for a long time and those complexities are increasing because of the challenges that covid has brought to the NHS system.”

Read more: NCS commissioning reforms ‘do not go far enough’; All but one council ‘underpaying’ for homecare; Care workers swayed by NHS recruitment campaign

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