Leeds care worker shortage leading to hospital beds problem, according to health expert

Cath Roff, Leeds City Council’s director of adults and health compared keeping and recruiting care workers to “running up the down escalator”, as some supermarket chains were able to offer less stressful and higher-paid roles.

Her comments came during a meeting of Leeds City Council’s adults and health scrutiny committee, which also heard how hospital chiefs were expecting the latest wave of Covid-19 hospital admissions to peak on Friday, January 21.

After being asked about delayed transfers from hospitals, Ms Roff said there were currently around 293 people currently in Leeds hospitals with “no reason to reside”.

She added: “We are having real problems with getting outflow from the hospital because of a very challenging situation both in social care and in community health services. With sickness absence kicking in, everybody is just maxed out and very stretched.

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“It is happening, but it is trickles. There is a building-up.”

On the availability of hospital beds, she added: “[Hospitals] are managing at the moment, but they are opening up every inch of surge capacity.

“They are modelling on the peak of admissions hitting a week on Friday – there are about 253 people with Covid at the moment, 13 in ICU, and they are modelling on potentially up to about 350 people [admitted to hospital with Covid].

“They will need every inch of capacity and might need to use the Nightingale – it depends whether we can get any flow out into stepping people down into community health services or supporting people at home.”

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The meeting was also told that a number of home care agencies were scaling back the time they were spending with people. Many care homes are also not at capacity because they do not have the staff numbers to safely look after a full house.

Ms Roff added: “We need every care worker we can hang onto – we will be doing a big recruitment campaign, kicking off next week, to try and attract new people into the sector.

“But it is a bit like running up the down escalator to try and stay ahead of this. I can’t predict how it will pan out. It is a really serious decision for people – it is their livelihood.

"When I see Sainsbury’s has now gone to paying people £10 an hour, and there is a cost of living squeeze, you can go work somewhere that is less stressful, for more money and you get 10 per cent off your weekly shop. It is a very tight labour market.”

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