Health and Care
The care sector is a significant employer in Barking and Dagenham. It accounts for 10% of all our employment, providing over 8,000 local jobs and supporting some of our most vulnerable people and their families.
Yet the sector is undervalued and underfunded nationally, leading to low pay and insecurity for many care workers.
Council plan
In 2022, the Council’s Inclusive Economy and social care teams developed a joint action plan to tackle these national issues locally, resulting in improvements to the pay and support available for personal assistants and commissioned care providers in the borough.
Training and progression routes
We’re currently working with local innovation partners Care City and BHR CEPN to develop new training and progression routes within the care sector. This work seeks to demonstrate how more integrated models of health and social care could boost national sector recruitment and retention and ease pressure on health services at a time of national crisis.
New apprenticeship programmes creating nursing associates in non-nursing settings and ‘enablement champions’ in care homes allow experienced carers to develop in their roles and improve levels of care for service users, thus reducing the number of hospital admissions. Care City is also delivering the Enhanced Homecare programme, training and equipping care staff with remote monitoring technology to improve health outcomes through improved escalation and communication of concerns.
Staff recruitment and retention
We are also helping care providers tackle the crisis in staff recruitment and retention in the sector through support to:
- Deliver Shift-Life Balance: Training for managers in the care sector to improve the approach to scheduling and flexible working in order to better the needs of shift workers, while still meeting the demands of the business – designed by flexible-working experts Timewise.
- Support sustainability: A bespoke programme of 121 mentoring and training to support care providers committed to delivering high quality care through an engaged workforce to manage costs through operational efficiencies, develop a business plan, and understand how to access local authority contracts – delivered by our local partner the Barking Enterprise Centre.
Programmes access
If you’re a local care provider and interested in accessing either of these programmes, email businessforum@lbbd.gov.uk stating ‘care sector support’ in the subject line.
You can find information about tenders for local authority care contracts through the Barking and Dagenham procurement portal or the London Tenders Portal.
Working in health and social care
Interested in a career in health and social care?
Flexible working that works for care workers as well as providers
