Shropshire carers welcome recruitment drive amid social care struggles

Radfield Home Care is taking part in the Department of Health and Social Care's recruitment drive, which will run until the end of March.

The company has its roots in Shrewsbury and now has residential homes across Britain. Owner and director Dr Hannah MacKechnie said the campaign "has not come soon enough" for the care sector, which has an eight per cent vacancy rate.

The Every Day is Different initiative, which launched this week, includes advertising and recruitment events, and care companies including Radfield have been asked to provide case studies and advertise vacancies.

Dr MacKechnie said: "Our focus is providing exceptional care to people in our local communities and without exceptional care staff, we cannot achieve this.

"The care sector provides incredibly rewarding job opportunities and at Radfield we offer great rates of pay, flexibility around family life and fantastic career progression.

"When you can do such a worthwhile job and really make a difference to other people’s lives, why would you want to work anywhere else?”

A study by Skills for Care found that the average rate of pay for care work is just above the legal minimum, at about £7.89 an hour among independent providers.

It also said that almost 1.5 million people already work in social care in England, but 650,000 more could be needed by 2035 to cope with an ageing population.

Care Minister Caroline Dinenage said: “We need to spread the word that careers in adult social care can be rewarding, varied and worthwhile.

"Care is a vocation where you can make a real difference and every day really is different from the next.

"As part of our national recruitment campaign, we want to work with adult social care providers to recruit the best possible talent and I urge them to advertise their vacancies, so we can help fill as many as possible and build a workforce that is fit for the future.”

Skills for Care chief executive Sharon Allen said: “The campaign will help employers find people who have the right personal values, making them great care workers.

"That means people in our communities will be supported by highly motivated and skilled workers.”

To learn more about the campaign and see the work carers do, visit everydayisdifferent.com.