Social care officials must take action to resolve a lack of carers and social workers in Argyll and Bute, the council’s leader has said.
Robin Currie told a health and social care meeting that the situation was ‘a severe problem’ which saw him receive an unprecedented number of emails.
He was commenting after Jane Fowler, Argyll and Bute Council’s head of customer support services, detailed how the authority supported young people into a career in care.
The discussion took place during a meeting of the area’s health and social care partnership’s integration joint board last week.
Graham Bell, a non-executive board member, said: “It seems to me that the pandemic has been particularly difficult for young people coming into the job market and getting settled.
“We are going to need a lot of young people coming into services, and I am just wondering what is being done, particularly face to face?
“With reference to what you call ‘grow your own’, it seems that is going to be by far a major way of tackling the problem.
“I would guess that they are also more likely to stay longer than people coming in and out of the area. There is also going to have to be a dramatic rise in the number of people doing VQs to hit the ‘grow your own’ targets.”
Ms Fowler responded: “We’ve had the council ‘grow your own’ programme in place for a while now, and we have a team designing our SVQ programme.
“We also saw young people down into a care career at an early stage. That remains a cornerstone of our approach to supporting young people into an organisation.
“We have a dual role as employer, but also as facilitator to start talking about what the opportunities are for working in the public sector. We have taken a lot of information from colleagues at Highlands and Islands Enterprise.”
Cllr Currie then said: “I understand what Jane says, but I am a simple guy and like to say things like it is. Simply and practically, we have a severe problem on our hands right now.
“I have never had email correspondence before the way I have now, regarding the lack of carers and social workers in Argyll and Bute.
“I have just had one from a person whose mother had been in hospital since July and who is trying to talk to a social worker, but could not find one anywhere. They had to go to a call centre and were promised they would get calls back.
“So there is a real problem. I would suggest that we recognise this as a priority, and do whatever it takes to try and resolve it.
“If we need to do something special or different in Argyll and Bute, let’s do it, because there are people lying in hospital just now who should not be there. We need to give this the highest priority and come up with an action plan as soon as possible.”
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