What happens when the health and social care sector comes together to tackle workforce challenges?   

The health and social care sector has never been short of passionate people. Every day, health and social care professionals make a difference to the lives of the people, families and communities they support. 

But with ongoing workforce shortages, rising demand and rapidly changing ways of working, one question continues to dominate sector conversations: how do we build a workforce that doesn't just meet today's needs, but is ready for tomorrow's challenges too? 

That's the thinking behind NCFE's new Health and Social Care Skills Collective. 

Bringing together employers, educators, workforce leaders, sector bodies, union representatives and people with lived experience, its focus is to explore the workforce challenges facing health and social care and identify practical solutions that support both today's professionals and tomorrow's workforce. 

The Collective's first paper explores how the sector can move beyond recruitment and take a longer-term approach to workforce development. Through discussions with experts from across health and social care, the Collective is generating insights to help inform future workforce thinking and drive positive change. 

Five insights shaping the future health and social care workforce

1. Creating learning cultures beyond qualifications

The Collective agreed that qualifications and apprenticeships provide an important foundation. However, participants stressed that workforce development should continue throughout a person's career. Creating cultures that support continuous learning, mentoring, leadership development, and reflection will be essential to building a sustainable workforce. 

In practice: Building opportunities for mentoring, peer learning, and professional development can help individuals continue building skills throughout their careers, while enabling organisations to respond to changing workforce needs.

2. Career pathways need to be clearer and more visible

The Collective highlighted that health and social care careers are often poorly understood, particularly by young people, parents, and careers advisers. They called for clearer progression routes that show how people can move from education into specialist, leadership, and professional roles. 

In practice: Whether attracting new entrants or supporting existing staff, clearer progression routes can help people understand the opportunities available and see a future within the sector. 

3. Recognising care as a profession, not just a job

Perhaps the most powerful theme was the need to elevate the status of social care and better recognise the expertise and value of the social care workforce. Participants explored how greater professional recognition and clearer progression opportunities could help strengthen careers across the care sector. 

In practice: Celebrating expertise, showcasing career progression, and highlighting the impact of care roles can help strengthen perceptions of the sector and attract the next generation of professionals.

4. Strong leadership starts at every level

The discussion highlighted the importance of developing leadership skills throughout a career, rather than only when someone moves into a management role. Leadership was viewed as a capability that can be nurtured at every level of the workforce. 

In practice: Building skills such as communication, decision making, mentoring, and collaboration can support both day-to-day practice and future career progression.

5. Health and social care need to work more closely together

The paper highlights the interdependence between health and social care and the importance of stronger collaboration across the two sectors. Workforce challenges may vary across settings, but many solutions are shared. Skills development, career progression and workforce planning all benefit from a more joined up approach. 

In practice: As health and social care become increasingly interconnected, stronger collaboration could create more opportunities for shared learning, knowledge exchange and career mobility across the two sectors. 

Why the Health and Social Care Skills Collective matters 

The launch of the Health and Social Care Skills Collective comes at a time when workforce development, skills reform, and the long-term sustainability of health and social care are moving higher up the national agenda. 

While there are no simple solutions to the workforce challenges facing the sector, the discussion demonstrated a strong appetite for collaboration and collective action. By bringing together the expertise of employers, educators and sector leaders, we can help ensure that technical and vocational education plays a central role in building a skilled, adaptable, and sustainable health and social care workforce for the years ahead.   

Learn more about the Health and Social Care Skills Collective and read the full paper to discover how the sector can work together to build a skilled, confident, and sustainable workforce for the future. 

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