Social care workforce delivery plan 2024 to 2027

Since the workforce strategy was published, the following actions have been taken forward:

• establishing the health and well-being framework so employers and employees can measure their organisation against an agreed set of standards
• giving access, for the first time, to a new universal mental health support service that’s free at the point of access for the whole workforce across health and social care
• setting-up new peer networks that provide mutual help and support for managers to help build resilience
• establishing a care worker card, recognising social care workers and giving access to a number of benefits
• completing research about terms and conditions for social workers
• the Social Care Fair Work Forum’s work on a pay and progression framework and the establishment ‘Social Care Workforce Partnership Council’ for the social care workforce
• carrying out the first Workforce survey that gives us a baseline on workforce well-being indicators in the sector.

We have a wide range of positive approaches we can continue to build on, for example the 2023 Accolades award winner Right at Home Cardiff & Newport.

There will always be more to do to make sure the sector is highly valued, and the workforce feels appreciated, including the ongoing promotion of the well-being offer nationally. You can read more about the progress made so far in the Workforce strategy annual report.

During our engagement work in 2022 and our formal consultation on this workforce delivery plan in 2023, you made it clear that you want the sector’s well-being to be a priority.

The 2023 workforce survey revealed that half of the workforce would recommend their organisation as a place to work. We need to continue to build on this so we have positive cultures in all care and support services. Staff who are positive about their job and their organisation deliver better services. The engagement, motivation and health of the workforce directly affects individuals who use care and support, and their carers.

You told us that the sector wants equal access to well-being offers and parity between social care statutory, voluntary and private providers, as well as health. We need to explore parity and how this is achieved in practice. You also asked for workforce strategy actions that concentrate on building fair work clauses into service commissioning and contracting processes for service delivery.

The 2023 workforce survey presents a mixed picture around morale, terms and conditions:

• two in three people surveyed (65 per cent) feel morale is good, but a similar proportion (63 per cent) find it hard to switch off away from work
• fewer than a third (31 per cent) feel there’s enough support for workplace stress
• few of those surveyed (seven per cent) would go to Canopi, the free mental health support service, for information about health and well-being at work.
• 26 per cent are looking to leave the sector in the next twelve months and 44 per cent in the next five years. Of these:
  • 58 per cent plan to leave because of the pay
  • 45 per cent want to leave because of the workload
  • 30 per cent want to leave because of poor employment or working conditions
• 57 per cent are satisfied with their current job
• 57 per cent of managers said they find it challenging to offer attractive terms and conditions to prospective candidates.

During our engagement work with the sector, we also heard calls to improve the promotion of trade unions to support the workforce. This included discussions about improved terms and conditions and finding more effective ways of bringing incentives to the sector, such as the Blue Light Card and its links to the Care Worker Card. We were asked to introduce “safety committees” and “safety representatives” for the workforce to have a voice about matters of health and safety, including aspects of well-being. Of those who took part in the workforce survey, 35 per cent said they were trade union members.

You told us you want better ways of gathering and acting upon the workforce’s views. You want more direct conversations instead of just surveys. It’s clear that little things matter as much as the big changes. We also need to make sure we engage with people who don’t easily or readily use digital platforms or technologies, so that our approach is as inclusive as possible. This is considered further in Theme 4: Building a digitally ready workforce.

We were also challenged to consider how we strengthen engagement with unpaid carers and how the well-being offer can be extended to this part of the sector.

The health and social care workforce will feel valued and supported wherever they work.

Workforce well-being is affected by a range of factors, so positive progress for this theme, reviewed every year, would mean:

• an increase in how many of the workforce feel morale is good (65 per cent in 2023)
• the workforce knows where to find out about health and well-being support at work (in 2023, 33 per cent said Social Care Wales and 7 per cent said Canopi)
• a reduction in the percentage of the workforce looking to leave the sector in the next twelve months (26 per cent in 2023)
• a reduction in percentage of the workforce who said they’ve experienced bullying, discrimination or harassment (37 per cent in 2023)
• standardised methodology scores that can be compared nationally, for life satisfaction, feeling worthwhile, happiness and anxiety (we’ll establish a baseline in 2024).

During 2024:

1. Support employers to embed workforce well-being in their organisations by promoting and refreshing the Health and well-being framework.

2. Establish a framework that makes sure there’s parity, fair reward and recognition:

• for social care workers, through the Social Care Fair Work Forum pay and progression framework and
• for social workers, through the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) led consideration of consistent social work terms and conditions options appraisal.

3. Continue research and engagement work, including an annual independent survey of workers, and use what we learn to improve how we support workforce well-being.

4. Support workforce well-being through the ongoing promotion of existing and new well-being resources and services, including Canopi and the Care Worker Card. 

5. Maintain networks and communities to share different ways of improving workforce well-being.

6. Embed the principles of fair work in the Welsh Government National Framework for the Commissioning of Care and Support in Wales.

During 2025 to 2027:

7. Provide guidance about the purpose, function and benefits of organisational safety committees that address all aspects of workplace safety, including well-being.

8. Look into and report on the best way to embed and monitor progress on well-being approaches through existing regulatory processes.

9. Welsh Government will explore extending the mental health support service to volunteers and unpaid carers.

10. Develop and put in place recommended training about equality and diversity.

• We’ll monitor awareness and the use of well-being resources and support services.
• We’ll report on progress against actions agreed through the annual workforce survey
• We’ll report on reasons why people may want to leave the sector, as described in the annual workforce survey
• We’ll evaluate the health and well-being framework.
• Every year, we’ll report on all the actions of this workforce delivery plan and any new identified actions.

Since the workforce strategy was published, the following actions have been taken forward:

• establishing a new Introduction to social care programme which gives those taking part job seeking skills and a better understanding of the sector. Since its launch the programme has been completed by more than a thousand people.
• embedding WeCare Wales, the first national profile raising campaign for careers in social care, early years, childcare and play, into our work and into the sector. We’ve developed targeted schemes for professions experiencing staff shortages and those finding it hard to recruit, including social work, domiciliary care, apprenticeships and the Welsh language
• providing funding to support seven regional connectors so that WeCare Wales’s support for attraction and recruitment can be embedded locally and regionally
• carrying out research to understand recruitment and job seeker behaviour
• launching a free innovation coaching service with a specific round of support for employers to develop their ideas to improve recruitment and retention.

We have a wide range of positive approaches we can continue to build on, such as our 2023 Accolades winner Seren Support Services.

You can read more about the progress made so far in the Workforce strategy annual report.

You want to change how people perceive a career in social care, for the current and future workforce. Fewer than half of those surveyed in the 2023 workforce survey feel valued by partner agencies (48 per cent) and the general public (44 per cent). You urged us to raise the profile of the amazing work being done and the rewards of working in social care, to show its value and win the public’s hearts and minds.

We need to show that working in social care can be fulfilling, rewarding and socially valuable. We need to build on the existing motivations to join the workforce, which were clear in the 2023 workforce survey:

• 63 per cent joined the sector as they want to make a difference
• nearly half (48 per cent) were attracted to the sector after speaking to friends and relatives
• 19 per cent experienced being a carer for others at some time in their life.

Most of those who responded to the 2023 workforce survey (three in four) feel that increased pay and improved parity with other sectors could improve recruitment and retention. Theme 1: An engaged, motivated and healthy workforce has more information about actions relating to pay, terms and conditions.

We’re working to make social care a more attractive career, by improving the overall terms and conditions and offering clear pathways for workers who want to progress. You want more emphasis on working with schools and colleges, so we can talk to young people at the beginning of their career journey. You also want us to show people of any age who have the right values, a range of entry points into the sector, including through apprenticeships and international recruitment.

During our engagement work you told us that retention is just as important as recruitment, so we’ve embedded actions across this workforce delivery plan to support retention. We need to understand why people stay in the sector, so we can use this information to promote the profile of the sector to the potential workforce and the public.

We also need to improve our approach to volunteers in the sector, recognising these skills as well as the expertise of unpaid carers. Where relevant, we should create appropriate pathways into employment.

Health and social care will be well established as a strong and recognisable brand and the sector of choice for our future workforce.

Attraction and recruitment are affected by a range of factors, so positive progress for this theme, monitored every year, would mean:

• maintaining the percentage of people who join the sector as they want to make a difference (63 per cent in 2023)
• reducing the percentage of vacancies as a proportion of the sector (5,323 vacancies, or 9 per cent in 2022)
• reducing the percentage of employers reporting challenges in staff availability (71 per cent in 2023)
• improving length of service, using data from the Register of social care workers to measure retention (we’ll establish the baseline)
• improving how valued the workforce feels (in 2023, 76 per cent felt valued by the people they support and 44 per cent felt valued by the general public)
• improving how the Welsh public perceives the workforce (in the 2022 to 2023 Omnibus Survey, more than two thirds thought the workforce did a good job and almost three quarters had confidence in them).

During 2024:

11. Continue to promote social care as a career of choice to the public, with an emphasis on schools, colleges and underrepresented groups. 

12. Continue to deliver programmes and plan schemes to widen access to careers in social care.

13. Hold an annual Accolades awards ceremony to celebrate the work of the sector.

14. Commission research to understand more about the contribution volunteers can make to social care.

During 2025 to 2027:

15. Implement approaches to better understand and improve public perceptions.

16. Improve sector recruitment and retention practices, including developing a retention framework and resources to support good employment practice, for example retention and exit interviews, succession planning guidance and safer recruitment guidance.

17. Develop systems that monitor:

• learners’ journeys from when they complete their award through to employment.
• retention once they’re in employment.
• the journey from the WeCare Wales website into employment.

• We’ll report on the reach and engagement levels of each WeCare Wales campaign and on website users, both unique and return visitors.
• We’ll report on the numbers of people moving into education and/or employment from the Introduction to social care programme.
• We’ll use the annual workforce survey to monitor:
  • reasons why people leave the sector, and
  • what the workforce thinks should be done to make the social care sector a more attractive and rewarding place to work.
• Every year, we’ll report on all the actions of this workforce delivery plan and any new identified actions.

Since the workforce strategy was published, the following actions have been taken forward:

• local initiatives that embed and develop new ways of working across statutory, private and third sector organisations to respond to the public’s needs
• establishing and starting to carry out actions in the joint Strategic Mental Health Workforce Plan
• activities that increase access to learning pathways into nursing, reablement roles in social care settings and developing trauma informed practice
• developing a Trusted assessor online toolkit, including a competency matrix as part of Goal 6 of the Six Goals for Urgent and Emergency Care Programme.

You can read more about progress made so far in the Workforce strategy annual report.

During our engagement work, you said there should be a focus on what matters to the person receiving care and support and their carers, with early intervention and prevention as an important underlying principle to service design. We need the workforce to follow the person, working alongside unpaid carers and volunteers to provide continuity and consistency of care and support.

You want the workforce to be allowed to develop and adopt new ways of working, including working across professional boundaries. To enable this, you want service delivery to be driven by true integration, and not by funding. You want strong and clear governance and the removal of unnecessary bureaucracy. This feedback will be considered in Welsh Government support for regional partnership boards.

You want the workforce to have a collaborative approach to finding solutions and you feel that communication is the biggest barrier to seamless working. You told us that being able to network and have joint training in safe spaces, where people can freely explore and share solutions, would encourage innovation and promote new ways of working.

As part of this theme, you told us again that parity between the health and social care sectors is important. Within the social care sector itself, you want parity between statutory, voluntary, and private provision.

You feel that there needs to be parity in how services are designed, commissioned and resourced, to provide stronger integrated services, leading to better retention of the existing workforce. We have covered the actions to address this feedback in Theme 1: An engaged, motivated and healthy workforce and Theme 2: Attraction and recruitment.

Your feedback asked us to take account of work that’s already happening locally and regionally, so it’s not a top-down process. There was recognition that seamless working needs to be considered alongside new models of service design and commissioning.

For integrated models to be effective, they must be based on strong workforce planning that covers all aspects of health and social care. When designing services so they have value, the views of citizens should be considered. Our response to this is in Theme 7: Workforce supply and shape.

Multi-professional and multi-agency workforce models will be the norm.

Seamless working is affected by a range of factors, so positive progress in this theme, reviewed every year, would mean:

• engaging with regional workforce boards every year to get feedback about how integrated workforce needs are met
• annual monitoring and reporting of the Social Care Wales Workforce Development Programme (SCWWDP) to understand the workforce priorities of integrated services.

During 2024:

18. Continue to support practice frameworks and similar developments to emphasise and support multi professional working.

19. Continue to promote resources and networks, based on the multi-professional framework for integrated working, that showcase examples of effective multi-professional working. 

20. Continue to work jointly with HEIW on workforce plans that affect both sectors and make the most of opportunities for seamless working and joint training, including nursing, primary care, and the joint Mental Health Workforce plan.

During 2025 to 2027:

21. In response to service models, adjust or implement workforce focussed initiatives and resources to support working across health and social care boundaries.

• We’ll give progress reports against the ambition of the Mental health workforce plan.
• We’ll give progress reports about the numbers of social care workers taking up places on nurse training and returning to the social care sector after graduation.
• We’ll report on our progress against the actions related to new policy drivers and service models.
• Every year, we’ll report on all the actions of this workforce delivery plan and any new identified actions.

Since the workforce strategy was published, the following actions have been taken forward:

• supporting the sector’s shift to digital, through targeted increases in funding and by developing national learning modules including digital learning assets
• commissioning the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) to carry out research to understand the shift to digital learning.
• carrying out work to understand the best way of supporting digital innovation in the social care sector
• commissioning work to develop an approach to understand the digital maturity and literacy of the social care sector in Wales
• prioritising improving digital literacy and digital infrastructure in the workforce through the Social Care Wales Workforce Development Programme (SCWWDP) grant.

You can read more about progress made so far in the Workforce strategy annual report.

During our engagement work, you told us the pandemic was an opportunity to make significant progress in the use of digital skills and technology, and you don’t want us to lose momentum. Increased online learning, the use of virtual reality technology and simulated learning all came about through necessity during the pandemic, and you want to build on this. You want to make sure that parts of the workforce aren’t digitally excluded, and you want us to make the most of opportunities to invest in infrastructure and skills development programmes.

You recommended that we consider local or regional initiatives that can be scaled up, national approaches to support advances in innovation and technology and shared learning platforms. Learning through digital platforms needs to be accessible, and bitesize learning opportunities help with this approach. You also emphasised that “one size doesn’t fit all” and there still needs to be face-to-face learning when this is most suitable, because of the learner’s preferences or the subject matter. We cover this further in Theme 5: Excellent Education and learning.

The digital and technological capabilities of the workforce will be well developed and widely used, to optimise the way we work and help us deliver the best possible care for people.

A digitally ready workforce is affected by a range of factors. To understand progress in this theme we need to establish appropriate ways of measuring digital maturity and literacy, including confidence. We plan to do this following the digital maturity and literacy assessment.

During 2024:

22. Carry out a digital maturity and literacy assessment with the social care sector.

23. Continue to develop resources and consider opportunities to widen access to digital learning and development.

During 2025 to 2027:

24. Develop an action plan based on the findings of the digital maturity and literacy assessment.

25. Implement ways of enhancing the digital maturity and literacy, including the confidence, of the wider health and social care workforce in Wales, reflecting the action plan.

• We’ll report on the digital maturity and literacy assessment.
• We’ll report on what actions are taken and the progress made following the digital maturity and literacy assessment.
• We’ll report on the number of new e-learning modules that are developed and taken up by the social care workforce.
• Annual reporting of the SCWWDP grant to understand the workforce priorities of digital and technological capabilities.
• Every year, we’ll report on all the actions of this workforce delivery plan and any new identified actions.

Since the workforce strategy was published, the following actions have been taken forward:

• funding and developing “grow your own” models for qualifying as a social worker, delivered by local authorities. These give the workforce the chance to learn while they earn. In 2022 to 2023, there were 422 people on qualifying social work programmes across all three years of the degree, compared to 234 in 2020 to 2021. This is an increase of 80 per cent since the launch of the workforce strategy.
• Welsh Government has increased the bursaries for student social workers
• supporting the sector to implement new health and social care vocational qualifications introduced in 2019 and 2020. In 2023 to 2024, following sector feedback, changes were made to how level 2 and level 3 qualifications are assessed. There’s more improvement work to come on level 4 and 5 qualifications.
• aligning the regionally administered SCWWDP with the workforce strategy themes
• supporting the development of a new Welsh language checker for the social care sector, to collect information about workers’ Welsh language skills in speaking, reading, listening and writing. The checker helps workers to take the next step in their language development and use.

You can read more about the progress made so far in the Workforce strategy annual report.

To professionalise the social care workforce, you feel you need more support to grow the sector’s capacity through clear and accessible career pathways. These would support people to move from learning and developing skills to more formal vocational qualifications and professional pathways.

These offers need to be extended in an appropriate way to unpaid carers and volunteers.

During our engagement work, you said that you want us to make learning and development available to more people. Equality and inclusion are important for the current and future workforce, and we need to:

• treat learning, development and CPD with the same level of importance as qualifications, including post qualifying frameworks
• offer more opportunities for you to learn Welsh and improve your Welsh language skills
• provide greater equity in terms of access to learning and development opportunities, to make sure we attract, retain and develop a diverse workforce
• continue to focus on widening access, including the use of apprenticeships and ‘top-up’ modules, for those coming to the sector with theory-based qualifications only
• introduce accelerated programmes for professional pathways such as social work and occupational therapy, and give opportunities for individuals to earn and learn.

You also want more alignment around workforce planning, education forecasting, learning and development, and learning supply. This is so the supply of learning can more accurately reflect demand. We cover this in Theme 7: Workforce supply and shape.

The investment in education and learning for health and social care professionals will deliver the skills and capabilities needed to meet the needs of people in Wales.

Excellent education and learning is affected by a range of factors, so positive progress for this theme, reviewed every year, would mean:

• a reduction in the percentage of the registered workforce who must gain the qualifications needed to renew their registration (in December 2023 this was 52 per cent of the adult care home workforce, 43 per cent of the domiciliary care workforce, and 73 per cent of the residential child care workforce)
• an increase in the percentage of the workforce who say they get the right training to support them in their role (79 per cent in 2023)
• an increase in the number of individuals completing apprenticeships (2,502 in 2022 to 2023)

During 2024:

26. Continue to work with partners and education providers to make sure education meets the needs of the health and social care system, and includes programmes offered in Welsh.

27. Continue to invest in increasing the number of social care professionals who are trained and carry out continuing professional development (CPD) in Wales, including supporting learning opportunities for volunteers and unpaid carers.

28. Make it easier for people to start social care careers by removing barriers and developing work-based learning models.

During 2025 to 2027:

29. Develop ways of presenting career and learning pathways that are linked to the Pay and Progression Framework being developed by the Social Care Fair Work Forum, and align these to the revised CPD expectations of Social Care Wales. 

30. Develop and deliver qualifications that support the recognition of a range of working arrangements, such as students and night workers.

31. Develop a ‘passport’ for training specifically aimed at recognising training, making sure it’s portable from one role to another and links to CPD expectations.

• We’ll report on the key metrics from the SCWWDP grant. We’ll include information about the numbers of qualifications and training places funded through the grant and an analysis of spending on the main priorities. We’ll also include qualitative measures reflecting the outcomes of the action plans submitted.
• We’ll report on the number of social work students who are sponsored and who have accessed the degree through vocational pathways.
• We’ll report on any barriers to accessing work-related training, as reported to us in the annual workforce survey.
• We’ll report on the work carried out to address these barriers and the measures of success against each area.
• Every year, we’ll report on all the actions of this workforce delivery plan and any new identified actions.

Since the workforce strategy was published, the following actions have been taken forward:

• working with HEIW to agree compassionate leadership principles and a ‘compassionate leadership behaviour compass’, which explains how to create compassionate leaders and cultures in health and care
• maintaining and developing leadership programmes to embed compassionate leadership principles, including the Middle Manager Development Programme and the Aspiring Directors and Team Manager Development Programme
• raising awareness of other leadership programme opportunities across health and social care, like Climb, Intensive learning academies and Academi Wales
• developing with HEIW the Gwella site, a leadership portal that provides access to and promotes a range of compassionate leadership resources to everyone within health and social care in Wales.

Many leaders already show the leadership behaviours needed in social care settings, such as the 2023 Accolades winner, Polly Duncan. We’ll continue to celebrate and build upon these approaches.

You can read more about progress made so far in the Workforce strategy annual report.

There’s universal support for the way we use compassionate leadership, and you encourage us to promote resources like the Gwella platform and learning programmes to support compassionate leadership and organisational development. You feel this needs better promotion across the whole sector, not just within the statutory sector, and to make all the resources accessible to improve diversity in leadership roles.

You want compassionate leadership roles to be modelled from top to bottom and the space to use compassionate leadership, even in high pressure situations.

You also feel we need to focus on making a compassionate team cultures that:

• reflect leadership values, and
• find ways of rewarding people who don’t want to become leaders or managers but want to develop as experts in practice.

You asked us not to ignore what’s happening locally and regionally and to add value to these programmes by potentially scaling-up and replicating those that work elsewhere.

We also had a lot of strong feedback about:

• the need for succession planning, including those with valuable skills and expertise looking to reduce hours or retire. This will retain talent to help with succession plans. Theme 7: Workforce supply and shape explores this further
• the benefits of joint leadership development across health and social care
• thorough ways of coaching and mentoring new managers and leaders, focusing on well-being
• building national coaching and mentoring programmes to support the development of new and existing leaders.

You also identified the need for parity with health in how leaders and managers are perceived and rewarded, in terms of pay and also wider terms and conditions across the sector. We cover terms and conditions in Theme 1: An engaged, motivated, and healthy workforce.

Leaders in the health and social care system will show collective and compassionate leadership.

Excellent leadership and succession are affected by a range of factors, so positive progress in this theme, reviewed every year, would mean:

• an increase in the percentage of the workforce who would like a leadership position in the future (36 per cent in 2023)
• an increase in the percentage of the workforce who feel supported by their manager (66 per cent in 2023)
• managers in social care broadly reflect the diversity of the workforce they oversee.

During 2024:

32. Create accessible leadership development resources and offers for individuals and organisations, based on the compassionate leadership principles and improve access for those from diverse backgrounds.

33. Promote programmes that support aspiring leaders.

34. Continue to develop, promote and widen access to the Gwella site.

35. Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) and Social Care Wales will publish principles of positive cultures to support services to embed them in practice.

During 2025 to 2027:

36. Develop joint leadership programmes across health and social care.

37. Embed compassionate and positive culture principles in the refreshed Code of Practice for Social Care Employers and Social Care workers

• We’ll report on how many people took part in leadership and management programmes and any themes that emerge in post course evaluations.
• We’ll share updates about new leadership programmes, including evaluation of initial delivery.
• We’ll summarise learning and approaches delivered locally that support the development of compassionate leadership, so there’s shared learning.
• Every year, we’ll report on all the actions of this workforce delivery plan and any new identified actions.

Since the workforce strategy was published, the following actions have been taken forward:

• completing work with local authorities to better understand their approach to workforce planning
• changing how we collect workforce data to focus on the data sets needed for effective and timely workforce planning approaches. We now have an annual workforce data set we can continue to build on, and we continuously make data available on the National social care data portal for Wales.

• carrying out specific areas of investigation, such as our work to better understand the significant increase of agency workers.
• starting a pilot programme to support employers with workforce planning, to meet the Welsh language needs of people receiving care and support
• carrying out a data maturity assessment with all local authorities. The national findings will be published in 2024.

You can read more about the progress made so far in the Workforce strategy annual report.

You identified that we don’t have enough data and intelligence to help us plan the workforce effectively. We need to better understand the current workforce, in particular the diversity in our workforce in terms of ethnic minorities, disabilities and language. This will allow us to build workforce plans and make decisions that reflect our current workforce and plan for a workforce that reflects the communities we work in.

Feedback also recognised that we must be confident about predictions of how many people are needed to work in the sector in the future, when considering the expected growing demand for services and how service models will be developed to meet the needs of communities.

You told us that this isn’t just about workforce numbers, but about understanding what people can offer across sectors, including skills and capabilities, gaps and areas of duplication, and the critical role of volunteers and unpaid carers.

Workforce planning approaches and the workforce strategy need to reflect the role of wider functions in the sector. For example, the emergence of:

• micro carers
• personal assistants
• occupational therapists
• sensory workers
• rehabilitation officers for visual impairment
• specialist roles such as Best Interest Assessors and Approved Mental Health Practitioners.

We’ll have a sustainable workforce in sufficient numbers to meet the health and social care needs of our population.

Workforce supply and shape is affected by a range of factors, so positive progress in this theme, reviewed every year, would mean:

• a reduction in the percentage of vacancies as a proportion of the sector (nine per cent in 2022)
• workforce plans in each region of Wales to meet the population’s needs.

During 2024:

38. Build capacity and capability in workforce planning

39. Develop, evaluate and refresh workforce plans based on agreed priorities

40. Support the development of a National Care and Support Service and respond to workforce implications.

During 2025 to 2027:

41. Develop a retention framework that supports organisations to improve retention.

• We’ll publish workforce data every year, showing trends on the most important metrics.
• We’ll give progress reports in line with workforce planning findings and recommendations.
• We’ll report annually on progress against national workforce plans.
• We’ll use annual workforce data to monitor vacancies and provide data on workforce trajectories.
• Every year, we’ll report on all the actions of this workforce delivery plan and any new identified actions.