Ben Weatherall, Director and Co-Founder of Curam, discusses navigating care coverage during busy holiday periods
Restful time off work is essential for maintaining a healthy workforce and limiting burnout among those in the care sector. All employees in the UK are entitled to a statutory holiday allowance of 28 days, and care professionals hired by a local authority are no different. While a rewarding career, providing care can be physically and mentally demanding, so rest and recuperation are vital in providing high-quality service and encouraging workforce retention.
Equally, local authorities have a duty of care to their constituents. The 2014 Care Act indicates that they must provide services for those in need of care, and this isn’t just the elderly. Councils should provide for disabled children aged up to 18 for parents who work or want to work; however, 95% of local authorities say they don’t have enough holiday care for disabled children. Failing to comply with these provisions could have legal implications for local authorities. For patients and families, inadequate care provisions can result in personal financial hits and potential further mental or physical health deterioration.
So, as the care sector struggles with staffing because of its high vacancy rate, how can local authorities fulfil their duty of care to the community while also ensuring their workforce doesn’t burn out? Between covering care professionals’ holidays, unpaid carers seeking additional respite and schools which would provide term-time care for children closed, holiday periods, such as summer, Christmas and Easter, stretch the demand further and local authorities may find it increasingly difficult to strike a balance.
The answer here is to reassess staff sourcing routes for short-term care cover, moving on from the traditional care agency model, which tends to be slow and expensive.
Leveraging technology to find affordable, reliable holiday care cover quickly
In 2023, councils spent £9.1 billion on care for 18-64-year- olds and an additional £9.3 billion for those aged 65+ Finding both cost and time-efficient ways of sourcing holiday cover is, therefore, essential as a quarter of councillors say it’s likely their local authority will go bankrupt. Local authorities grappling with holiday absence typically must rely on agency cover, which is notoriously expensive and slow to organise, causing disruption to clients and draining already stretched budgets.
Traditional routes are inefficient for sourcing holiday cover – it’s time for councils to innovate. The answer lies in technology-led staff acquisition, which offers affordable solutions by reducing overheads and admin fees. Care professionals operating through online platforms cost local authorities an average of £10 per hour less than agency staff, while they earn £5 an hour more on average than agency-employed staff.
Furthermore, with technology underpinning the sourcing and hiring of care professionals, councils can find care cover quickly and even in real-time.
In addition to cost and time savings, online care marketplaces facilitate the provision of appropriate, high-quality care. Councils can specify which skills are required to ensure that clients’ needs are met while their usual carer is away. Integrated video calling technology means clients can meet a potential intermediary carer before hiring them to ensure they are comfortable with the arrangement.
Benefitting from flexible care professionals
In addition to offering a more affordable route for local authorities, online care marketplaces also enable a more balanced work schedule for care professionals, who can set their own hours around their lives. Local authorities, in turn, benefit from care professionals who can be available on short notice and are flexible in the length of jobs they choose. This widens the accessibility of care for communities.
Care professionals operating through online platforms have a higher rate of successful visits, completing 99.9% of visits vs 85% completed by agency staff, as they only take on the jobs they can and want to. Online platforms also encourage care professionals to build networks that they can call on to source cover from a trusted, skilled colleague quickly when needed.
Limiting holiday disruption with reformed care acquisition routes
For local authorities working with a stretched care workforce, sourcing extra holiday care cover can strain their already limited resources. That’s why reforming the approach to sourcing and hiring care professionals to tech-centric methods is imperative to fulfilling councils’ duty of care by providing high-quality care to everyone who needs it while reducing pressure on budgets.
