The unfortunate impact of the NHS strikes on Social Care

At a time where nurses in the social care sector are paid less than their counterparts in the NHS, how will the industrial action by nurses in the NHS impact the already stretched social care sector? 
 
Nurses in the NHS have typically been paid more than nurses that choose to work in the social care arena. That has always resulted in a natural attrition of nurses from social care to the NHS. 

The worry of a lot of social care business leaders is that a significant increase in pay for NHS nurses will make the pull to the NHS much greater and accelerate the movement from the social care sector. The social care sector cannot compete with the pay rises that the NHS might be able to offer, and the social care sector is watching the developments on nurses pay very carefully as the bigger the increase, the more negative impact will have on staff retention within their businesses. 

Social care businesses are already stretched, and local authority budgets have been cut so the view is that the private paying social care users will inevitably end up paying for the shortfall in finances that any increase in NHS nurses’ salary may cause. This further emphasises the need for the NHS, Social Services and the Local Authorities to ensure they are all working together to provide end to end care rather than only joining forces in cases of emergency such as the recent block book beds initiative (with a lack of staff, rather than beds being the primary reason that patients are stranded in hospital). 

Care homes are already understaffed, and the blockages could move from the hospitals to the care homes, further increasing the issues the sector already has. There are approximately 165,000 vacancies in social care which is up 51% in the last year. Should the local authority be the go between social care and the NHS, or should there be a permanent direct bridge be creating a more seamless service so that traffic both ways can be managed more effectively, and patients’ needs are catered for because of their requirements rather than budgets available? Maybe then the staffing issues across the NHS and Social Care can be dealt with as one issue rather than two distinct ones.