Fears pay gap between NHS and social care staff drives workers away
Social care providers have called for a growing pay gap between NHS and social care staff to be urgently addressed by government to avoid a catastrophe in provision.
Providers said frontline social care staff earned more than 16% less than someone doing a similar job in the NHS. Their fear is that it will exacerbate an already critical recruitment crisis.
Around one in six patients in hospital cannot get out because of social care pressures.
Jaclyn Daly, a student nurse who works as a care assistant at Erskine care home in Edinburgh, said: "I joined to make sure that I actually enjoy the fundamentals of caring and what nursing is, at its core - personal assistance, and things like that.
"It's hard because when you work in the NHS, the wages are a little bit better, depending on the type of shifts, and the holiday pay that you get but you've got the uncertainty with it. You're not familiar with the area that you might be working in, and you don't know your residents."
When Jaclyn becomes a fully qualified nurse, she will face a choice about which path to take - stay in Scotland where she was funded to study nursing or move back home to Australia.
"I've got nurses in my family in Australia and they're all telling me to go back, particularly because there has been a whole social care reform in the last couple of years. So it's a difficult decision," she said.
A spokesperson for the Scottish government said: "Social care has felt the impact of Brexit on staffing, restrictions due to the pandemic, and increased costs due to energy prices and inflation and we are grateful to all staff and partners who have been working with us to look at solutions.
"Extra government funding has already helped deliver two pay rises for staff in two years and we are currently working on improved terms and conditions.
"Our national workforce strategy looks at how we can plan for, attract, train, employ and nurture our health and social care workforce."
