In our blog this month we find that older people are ‘losing faith in Government’ as the care crisis deepens https://www.carehomeprofessional.com/older-people-losing-faith-in-government-as-care-crisis-deepens-report-finds/, the latest edition of The New Ageing Index 2025 from Home Instead reveals a collapse in trust: before Labour took office, an average of 30% of older people (aged 66+) believed the party would improve social care. Less than eight months later, that figure has plummeted to just 17% – a drop of nearly 50% since the new Government came into power.
With 12.7 million people aged 65 or over in the UK, making up 19% of the population, and projections showing that this will rise to 22.1 million by 2072 or 27% of the population, this is ‘not a voting bloc any government can afford to ignore,’ Home Instead says. The Government has announced a ‘Plan for Change’ that will build a National Care Service in the UK. https://www.carehomeprofessional.com/the-governments-plan-for-change/.
So, what does the government’s ‘Plan for Change’ entail?
The ‘Plan for Change’ is understood to includes training for health and social care providers on integrating technologies and AI into their practices. The Health and Social Care Secretary, The Right Honourable Wes Streeting MP, speaking at Unison’s 2025 National Health Care Conference, also outlined a series of measures to boost the recruitment and retention of care staff with ‘plans to professionalise the adult social care workforce and help staff progress in their careers, leading to better pay and recognition’ and provide the “first universal career structure for adult social care”. He talked up the Government’s plans for a National Care Service and spoke about improving status and national respect for care work https://www.carehomeprofessional.com/wes-streeting-announces-first-universal-career-structure-for-adult-social-care/
According to Streeting, the Plan for Change includes:
- Setting up new job roles – like deputy managers, registered managers, personal assistants and a new enhanced care worker role – in recognition of increasingly complex care requirements. It will mean their skills will be recognised across the health service, so that GPs, doctors and other health professionals understand their expertise.
- £12 million to fund courses and qualifications for carers to develop new skills to build their expertise and advance in their careers. Cutting edge technology https://www.wired-gov.net/wg/news.nsf/articles/Cutting+edge+tech+introduced+in+social+care+09042025161500?open is due to be introduced into social care and a qualification is to be launched to teach digital leadership that will equip care leaders with the skills to use and rapidly deploy technology across care homes and other settings in a bid to shift adult social care from analogue to digital as part of the Plan for Change https://www.digitalhealth.net/2025/04/qualification-launched-to-teach-digital-leadership-in-adult-social-care/
All this comes as 71% of providers are struggling to recruit in the current climate and a further 37% were concerned about sustaining the current level of service delivery over the next 6 months https://www.carehomeprofessional.com/71-of-providers-struggling-to-recruit-in-current-climate/. The difficulties in recruitment and retention may be in some way due to visa scammers targeting overseas care workers with fake UK job offers https://smithstonewalters.com/news/visa-scammers-targeting-overseas-care-workers-with-fake-uk-job-offers. However innovations such as mobile care supporting social care staff https://www.nursingtimes.net/social-care/mobile-health-checks-supporting-social-care-staff-via-a-wellbeing-bus-31-03-2025/ are attempting to provide support for care workers alongside aiding the recruitment and retention of care workers.
Baroness Louise Casey will soon begin her independent commission into adult social care which will look at how the UK can recruit, retain and support the workforce. Alongside this social care luminaries will join the influential think tank within the Social Care Foundation (SCF) to inform a much-needed public and political debate on the UK’s care crisis https://www.carehomeprofessional.com/luminaries-of-social-care-join-influential-think-tank/
In the financial services space the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have recently published their Vulnerability Review and Jonathon Barrett, CEO of Comentis https://www.comentis.co.uk/about has published a reflection on the FCA findings and addresses the elephant in the room of this hugely important topic namely the distinct lack of emphasis on the use of systematic data to aid vulnerability identification. https://www.professionaladviser.com/opinion/4411747/vulnerability-review-reflection-fca-findings-addressing-elephant
In further ‘vulnerability’ news the FCA has probed banks on bereavement and power of attorney policies and has published good and poor practice to help firms provide the right support by being adaptable and putting consumers’ needs at the forefront of everything they do, which is consistent with the Consumer Duty.https://ifamagazine.com/fca-probes-banks-on-bereavement-and-power-of-attorney-policies/https://www.ftadviser.com/vulnerable-clients/2025/4/14/fca-probes-banks-on-bereavement-policies/