Leadership, management and training are the way forward
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
17 June 2011
The National Skills Academy for Social Care says leadership and training are paramount in the delivery of excellent social care.
The recent media reports of abuse and neglect in care facilities has exposed a worrying truth in the social care sector. This is that some people in the sector are not only unqualified, but are working with unsatisfactory training and under poor management.
Adult social care is currently experiencing a major realignment of its approaches to delivering care. At a time of challenge and uncertainty it is even more essential that the workforce is equipped with excellent training and skills. The development of leadership capabilities at every level of the workforce is critical to enabling the sector to meet the challenges it faces.
Chris Hume, Head of Leadership and Management at the National Skills Academy for Social Care said: “The recent media reports have shown that you cannot employ care staff with little or no training, offer them no appropriate leadership or management, and still expect excellence in social care.”
In the Panorama programme undercover reporter Joe Casey saw firsthand the unfortunate consequences of an insufficiently trained and unmanaged workforce.
The National Skills Academy for Social Care believes that adult social care deserves the best managers and leaders; people with imagination, determination and enthusiasm. Many people involved in social care already show outstanding leadership and deliver excellent care, but leadership learning should be available to everyone.
The Skills Academy is delivering a national leadership strategy for adult social care as a first significant step in making this happen. The strategy and the implementation of it will help deliver the excellent outcomes-focused care that is central to the Government's vision for Adult Social Care – Capable Communities and Active Citizens, published in November 2010. It will include proposals for a leadership qualities framework as one of the ways to embed leadership learning in adult social care.
The Strategy has been open for consultation and will be delivered later this year.
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Editors’ Notes
- Chris Hume is happy to be interviewed about leadership in the social care sector and the leadership strategy.
- The employer-driven National Skills Academy for Social Care focuses on leadership, management and commissioning and modelling excellence in learning, in adult social care.
- It is the first welfare-related Academy in the network of National Skills Academies which are employer-led centres of training excellence established by industry to create a world-class workforce by delivering the skills that employers need in each sector of the economy.
- The Skills Academy’s remit is to promote and support excellent learning and training for the 1.6 million workers and 40,600 employers in social care with a particular emphasis on small and medium-sized employers. Demographic changes mean the social care workforce is expected to rise to 2.5 million by 2025.
- The Skills Academy is led by a Board of employer representatives from across the statutory, private and not-for-profit sectors within adult social care.
- For more information visit www.nsasocialcare.co.uk
For more information please contact:
Amy Hanson
0203 2960 536
amy.hanson@nsasocialcare.co.uk
0203 2960 536
The National Skills Academy for Social Care is for everyone committed to excellent adult social care in England.
It was created by social care employers to transform the quality of leadership, management, training, development, and commissioning.