The net loss of social workers from children and families services should rightly ring alarm bells in Westminster and across the country (Social workers in England quitting in record numbers, 23 February). Sadly, it remains unacknowledged that the largest group of people social workers work with are older people and their carers, the vast majority of whom are living with some form of dementia.
We know from published research that social workers with specialist skills and knowledge play a vital role in securing better outcomes for older adults who are struggling. As well as a shortage of children’s social workers, a shortage of adults’ social workers – together with unprecedented demand for services and a dire paucity of appropriate care providers – is creating a perfect storm of unmet care needs across all age ranges.
For more than a decade, Conservative governments have ignored well-known issues of underinvestment and undervaluing of the social care workforce. How much longer will this government continue the pattern or, at best, fiddle with ill thought-out and unworkable cost-capping schemes, while people in need, young and old, continue to be put at risk unnecessarily?
Dr Phoebe Beedell
Bristol