Registration and regulation afford social care the same status as other professional bodies, support employers to recruit with confidence and to maintain safe employment practices. It helps to provide reassurance to the public that the social care workforce is professional, qualified and competent, and it offers recourse to workers, employers and people receiving services on those occasions when things go wrong.
It provides professional status and parity across the entire registered workforce and helps to ensure access to qualifications and training and development resources.
A regulated and qualified workforce assures the people we support that the care and support they receive will be of a good standard, will be provided by workers who have met the regulatory requirements and that the safety and wellbeing of the people we support are paramount.
The social care workforce is now much better qualified and highly skilled, and this is more widely recognised. Registration and regulation enable recruitment of a more diverse workforce, as well as improved collaboration between regulators and employers.
It will be important for regulators to continue to work collaboratively with the sector to reduce any existing barriers to working in social care. Regulatory processes could be streamlined, to reduce demand on workers’ and employers’ time. We need to work together to ensure time and support is available to workers and employers to achieve qualifications, and for ongoing professional development.
There’s a range of other things we need to do.