Improved well-being for the workforce

The well-being of the workforce is a key focus of our work. We want the workforce to be happy, healthy and supported, so that they in turn support the well-being of the people in their care.

We heard from more than 1,000 people who told us that the health and well-being of the workforce was of the most importance and it’s a key focus of the workforce strategy for health and social care.

Last year was our second full year of realising the strategy and it continued to be a challenging period for the sector. Despite the significant challenges of the last three years we’ve made progress and have started looking at the next phase of the strategy’s implementation, from 2023 onwards.

During the year, we published three plans to help put the workforce strategy into practice. These are:

• social work workforce plan
• direct care workforce plan
• strategic mental health workforce plan.

In October 2022, we introduced our first health and well-being framework for those working in social care and childcare, play and early years.

It describes what good well-being in the workplace looks like and how to create workplaces that support staff well-being.

In 2022 to 2023, we ran fortnightly online peer support sessions for domiciliary care managers and bimonthly sessions for care home managers:

• 93 per cent of participants told us they felt emotionally supported and supported others
• 69 per cent of participants told us they felt less isolated in their role.

The workforce told us they’d like to be able to connect and speak to others who support well-being in the workforce, and find out what works.

So we launched our online well-being community of practice during the year, where people can speak to others about supporting well-being at work, and find out what works. At the end of the year, we had 95 members and the community continues to grow.

In 2022 to 2023, we developed resources to support the well-being of the social care and early years workforce and more than 7,000 visitors looked at the information and resources on our website.