Skills drain afflicts voluntary sector

Voluntary sector care providers are losing most of their staff within two years of them joining and many leave social care altogether, the National Care Forum has found.

The umbrella body’s annual personnel survey, which covered almost 38,000 staff, found that 45.5 per cent of staff left within a year, up from 43.4 per cent in 2005, and 62.7 per cent quit within two.

Executive director Des Kelly (pictured) said he felt many of these were leaving social care, although information on this was not available. He said that workplaces should be made more welcoming to new staff. But the survey showed high qualification rates in the sector, with almost 60 per cent of care staff having NVQ level two, up from less than 35 per cent in 2005.

NCF tends to represent larger voluntary providers, and the survey found that over three-quarters of respondents had more than 500 staff.

● More information from www.nationalcareforum.org.uk/

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 mithran.samuel@rbi.co.uk