A specific minimum wage for social care is needed if England is to avert a staffing crisis, according to leading thinktanks.
Nuffield Trust and the Health Foundation have also called for the introduction of of national pay banding to tackle pernicious low pay in adult social care and encourage key workers to stay in the industry.
In a joint report, the organisations call on Labour to immediately crack down on illegal underpayment of wages, and urgently consult on introducing a separate, higher minimum wage for social care and a national pay scale.
Wales and Scotland have social care minimum wages, while New Zealand, Australia and France have national pay scales for social care.
Thea Stein, the chief executive of Nuffield Trust, said: “Low wages in social care are a major problem and it is imperative that the government finds ways to increase pay and bring more people into this vital sector.
“Tackling illegal underpayment of wages is a vital first step, but alone it won’t be enough to stop people leaving for better paid and less demanding roles elsewhere.
“Measures such as a sector-specific minimum wage and, in the longer-term, a pay scale akin to that in the NHS are likely to be needed, both to increase the basic level that care workers are paid, and to develop and retain experienced staff.
“These will come at a cost to the public purse, but would be a vital investment and the alternative is a continued exodus of domestically trained care staff.”
Ruth Thorlby, the assistant director of policy at the Health Foundation, said: “The government must do more to improve wages for people working in social care, with high vacancy rates in the sector and about one in five care workers living in poverty.
“Care workers must be rewarded for their vital work. Improved pay won’t address all the challenges facing social care, but is essential to ensure the sustainability of the care workforce.”
The report comes after the Labour government pledged in the king’s speech on Wednesday to introduce a fair pay agreement in social care.
It concludes that an inadequate approach to social care pay and funding by ministers has “trapped staff in a cycle of low wages and poor career prospects”.
England needs a further 540,000 social care posts by 2040 if the workforce is to grow in line with the increase in the number of people over the age of 65, according to Skills for Care’s workforce strategy.
But low pay leaves the sector reliant on foreign workers, and experts say it is little surprise that job vacancy rates are at 8% and turnover almost double the average of other sectors.
Research published in June found that nearly half of care workers in England earned less than a real living wage.
According to the latest data from Skills for Care, workers with at least five years of experience are paid only 8p more an hour than new starters.
Polling by Ipsos for Nuffield Trust and the Health Foundation shows widespread backing for a social care minimum wage and national pay scales. Its survey of 2,000 people in England found that 85% supported implementing a pay scale and 77% endorsed a sector-specific minimum pay rate.
Implementing these proposals would be expensive. According to Skills for Care, it would cost the state £4bn to align pay for care workers with two or more years of experience to their equivalent banding in the NHS.
Paying care workers £1 to £2 an hour above the “national living wage” would cost £2bn to £3.6bn a year. This would be offset by average annual savings of between £540m and £947m through reduced recruitment costs and fewer hospital admissions.
Responding to the findings, Simon Bottery, a senior fellow in social care at the King’s Fund thinktank, said: “When there are other jobs to go to in the economy, British people go to those jobs rather than choosing to work in adult social care.
“Unless we do something fundamental about that, we’re going to continue to have this chronic problem, which crucially affects people who draw on services, because there simply aren’t enough people to do the jobs that people need them to do.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “We are determined to tackle head-on the significant challenges social care faces.
“Social care workers make an enormous contribution to society and that’s why we have committed to establishing a fair pay agreement to properly reward their hard work and attract more people to the sector.
“We will undertake a deep-rooted programme of reform to create a national care service, which will provide everyone with the care they deserve.”
• This article was amended on 18 July 2024. Paying care workers £1 to £2 an hour above the “national living wage” would be offset by estimated average annual savings, through reduced recruitment costs and fewer hospital admissions, of £540m to £947m, not “£1m” as an earlier version said.
