Supporting the well-being of the social care workforce in Wales 2024
Compiled by Dr Grace Krause, edited by Dr Kat Deerfield and Dr Rhian Reynolds
In this briefing, we’ve gathered findings from our research to explore the experiences of the social care workforce in Wales in relation to their well-being.
We consider how the well-being of social care workers compares to the general population and how well-being and working conditions are linked. We also include information about what’s happening and what’s planned to support the well-being of the social care workforce in Wales.
These are some of the important things we learned from those who responded to our 2024 Have Your Say survey (Social Care Wales, 2024):
- 77 per cent of social care workers said their morale was good
- social care workers scored lower on life satisfaction and happiness, and higher on anxiety than the general population
- 57 per cent said they struggled to switch off when they leave work
- 41 per cent suggested they had enough support to deal with stress
- the main causes of stress were reported as workload (39 per cent), paperwork or administrative workload (33 per cent) and worrying about things outside of work (25 per cent)
- 52 per cent suggested they'd attended work at least twice in the past year despite being so ill they should have stayed at home
- most people feel supported by their colleagues (79 per cent) and their manager (70 per cent)
- 14 per cent of the workforce don't feel safe at work, and this figure rises to 22 per cent for social workers
- 38 per cent of the workforce have access to sick pay beyond statutory sick pay, dropping to 31 per cent of care workers
- 57 per cent said their services had the right staff.
The Have Your Say survey looks at what it’s like to work in social care in Wales. The NHS Wales Staff Survey 2023 (NHS Wales, 2024) asks what it’s like for health workers to work in the NHS in Wales. In this briefing, we compare the data collected for questions that are the same in both surveys. This is to show how the experiences of the social care workforce and NHS workforce in Wales might be similar or different.
The social care workforce scored themselves more negatively for life satisfaction, feeling life is worthwhile, happiness and anxiety than the Wales and UK average
Life satisfaction
where 0 is “not at all satisfied” and 10 is “completely satisfied”
- Social care workforce: 6.54 (UK average: 7.45 and Welsh average: 7.6).
Feeling the things you do in your life are worthwhile
where 0 is "not at all worthwhile" and 10 is "completely worthwhile"
- Social care workforce: 7.11 (UK average: 7.73 and Welsh average: 7.9).
Happiness
"Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday, where 0 is ‘not at all happy’ and 10 is ‘completely happy’?"
- Social care workforce: 6.58 (UK average: 7.39 and Welsh average: 7.6).
Anxiety
where 0 is “not at all anxious” and 10 is “completely anxious”
- Social care workforce: 4.35 (UK average: 3.23 and Welsh average: 2.9).
Some participants in our survey reported that their work had a significant impact on their mental health. Several people who took part in interviews and focus groups discussed experiencing high levels of stress, with some disclosing medical interventions to manage this.
Workload and staffing levels
When we asked the workforce about causes of stress, the most frequent response was workload. This was the case across all job groups. Over half of managers and social workers suggested that workload was the main cause of stress they experienced. And 33 per cent of care workers said the same. The second most frequently reported cause of stress was administrative duties. This was higher for both managers and social workers, with 46 per cent of managers and 52 per cent of social workers outlining administrative duties as a key stressor. But it was also the second most common answer from care workers, with 26 per cent naming them as a source of stress. The third most frequent response across all three job groups (care workers, social workers, and managers) was stress linked to home life, which scored 25 per cent for all respondents combined.
Many respondents also described unrealistic work expectations. They reported not having enough travel time between visits and that the journey was often unpaid (Social Care Wales, 2024):
“I'm probably breaking the speed limit, you know, to get to work on time, to do my job properly.” (Former support worker)
“When I was doing the 70 hours a week, I was only actually getting paid for like 55 hours ’cause the rest of it was travel time.” (Community support worker)
Participants talked about having to take time off for sickness caused by work stress and the knock-on effect of absences on staffing levels (Social Care Wales, 2024):
“They go long-term sick. They're not just sick for a week. […] they're off. That's it. They're gone and then they come back, things haven't changed, they just got worse because they're more chaotic and then they're gone permanently.” (Unknown job role)
Social care workers reported that being short staffed was a common issue that had a significant impact on them and those accessing care. Some participants reported having to make up for understaffing or having staff who lacked proper training. And described the stress and instability this created (Social Care Wales, 2024):
"Is this stressful? Hell yeah. No two days are the same and at the end of the day I am a nurse as well. And you know, and with nursing comes stress, with management in healthcare comes stress. It is what it is, but it's how you deal with it." (Registered nurse in social care)
We know that many social care workers enter the sector because they want to make a difference to people’s lives. Helping people to have a good life is one of the main things that they enjoy about their work (Krause et al., 2025). As the quotes from the workforce make clear, people delivering care may feel distress when they’re unable to meet people’s needs (Social Care Wales, 2024):
“It was just so stressful, so stressful. And when that particular client would say, ‘You can't go yet because I want such and such …’, you know. And then you explain that I'm sorry, but I have to [go] because I've got to be somewhere else ….” (Former social care support worker)
Another effect of chronic short staffing is that social care workers may not feel like they can take time off work themselves or are not allowed if the need arises:
“The colleague’s partner had a surgical operation [and] she was unable to get leave … Everybody's on sick leave or on annual leave … when she called the supervisor on call … she was told, ‘well I can't pluck staff out of thin air’ and she had to stay.” (Unknown job role)
Out of all respondents, 52 per cent said they’d worked at least twice in the past year despite being so sick they should have taken sick leave. Some said they’d done this between two and five times (34 per cent), and 18 per cent admitted to doing it more than five times. This may be related to many social care workers not being eligible for paid sick leave (Krause et al., 2025). However, there was no increase reported of working while sick within groups of workers on insecure contracts with less access to paid sick leave. Instead, managers (20 per cent) were most likely to have worked more than five times while sick. Managers and social workers (37 per cent each) were most likely to have worked between two and five times while sick.
More than half of all who responded said they’d worked at least twice in the past year despite being so ill they should have taken sick leave
Feeling safe at work
While 66 per cent of all respondents said they felt safe in their role, 14 per cent said they didn’t feel safe. These numbers varied by job group, with 12 per cent of care workers and 13 per cent of managers saying they felt unsafe at work, compared to 22 per cent of social workers. When we asked what made people feel unsafe at work, the two most common answers were work pressures and physical safety at work.
Work pressures
The most frequently discussed reasons for feeling unsafe at work were a lack of support from management, job insecurity, and excessive workloads. Respondents suggested they felt unsupported by management if they’d been (or had seen others being) suspended, or when allegations were made against them. They also reported that feeling undervalued led to concerns about their job security, as did a lack of clear organisational policies to support workers.
People also told us they felt unsafe because organisational financial pressures made them concerned about the sustainability of their jobs. They also suggested they felt unsafe because excessive workloads made them feel pressured and stressed. This is similar to the findings of the NHS Wales Staff Survey, where 32 per cent of respondents said they experienced unrealistic time pressures at work (NHS Wales, 2024).
Physical safety
In our Have Your Say survey the social care workforce also discussed feeling physically unsafe at work. In particular, they said that the behaviour of people they support sometimes puts their physical safety at risk (Social Care Wales, 2024):
“We have a young person targeting staff with abuse and violence.” (Residential childcare worker)
Some participants relayed experiences of feeling physically unsafe as a result of the behaviour of people using care services, with examples including threats of physical violence (Social Care Wales, 2024):
“Yes, absolutely threatened, car damaged, followed… because I was obviously frontline removing children… it's shocking because there's some of those situations I was in, you know, I was visiting children on the register on my own, and then a week later I'm going in with six police officers and thinking, well, I've actually been going there for months on my own. So, it's frightening sometimes to think back on some of those situations and I was threatened quite a few times.” (Responsible Individual)
Participants expressed concern about the lack of support offered by their organisations and how this was especially difficult for people who were new to the sector (Social Care Wales, 2024):
“So, somebody who's newly qualified or been around for two years, it's nigh-on impossible [for them] and I really feel for them. And like this is why we lose people, you know, because they're not supported.” (Unknown job role)
Participants told us that lone working could also lead them to feel more unsafe, (Social Care Wales, 2024):
“Sometimes you are very, very vulnerable 'cause we lone work. And sometimes I don't think there's enough support.” (Support worker)
“I often have to visit families following referrals of abuse against children where the perpetrator is present. There is no lone worker policy in my place of work nor a way of ensuring workers are safe after visits.” (Social worker – children and families)
Participants also talked about the difficulty of seeking advice about work because of obligations around confidentiality. They also highlighted how access to mental health support services could help with this (Social Care Wales, 2024):
“Because of the confidentiality as well … you can't speak to anybody outside of the team about things that are going on, and that is so hard. This is why I think counsellors should be available to everyone 24/7 like a hotline or something. They ring and rant or whatever.” (Adult care home manager)
Bullying, harassment, and discrimination
In our survey, we asked about people’s experiences of bullying, harassment, and discrimination. Reassuringly, over 90 per cent of respondents said they hadn’t experienced any kind of bullying, discrimination, or harassment from managers, colleagues, or the individuals or families they’d supported in the past 12 months. This is a higher percentage than found in the most recent NHS Wales Staff Survey. There, 25.15 per cent said they’d experienced bullying, discrimination, or harassment in the last 12 months from people accessing care, their relatives, or other members of the public. A further 9.94 per cent said they’d experienced this treatment from managers, and 17.66 per cent from other colleagues (NHS Wales, 2024).
Most people said they hadn’t experienced any kind of bullying, discrimination or harassment in the past 12 months
Being supported and valued
People’s feelings of safety were strongly impacted by the amount of support they received from their organisations. Some people said they had access to support and this had helped them to feel safer at work (Social Care Wales, 2024):
“People can become very challenging and that can be difficult, but we've always got support of other staff or registered mental health nurses there. So, I always feel able if I can't deal with the situation, I always feel I'm safe to step away from that and I'm protected.” (Adult care home manager)
Other participants felt that training - for example, dealing with complex needs - helped them to feel appropriately supported. Some participants who had moved from direct care roles to management positions expressed drawing on their own negative past experiences to help them put sufficient support in place for their staff (Social Care Wales, 2024):
“we've got procedures in place for people to follow … in terms of how to deal with these situations…so I suppose it's helpful in a way having been through those situations to understand what they're going through and make sure they know what they're doing.” (Social care manager)
Some respondents said they didn’t feel valued, recognised and appreciated (Social Care Wales, 2024):
“We're not being listened to. No one's actually valuing the thoughts of the carers because we're so low down […] on the pay scale.” (Domiciliary care worker)
However, when asked about how supported they felt in general, most respondents said they had always or mostly had good support from managers (70 per cent) and peers (79 per cent). The majority (77 per cent) reported positive morale. Similarly, respondents suggested they felt valued by managers (70 per cent), colleagues (80 per cent), and the individuals and families they support (80 per cent). But fewer felt valued by partner agencies (57 per cent) and the general public (51 per cent) (Social Care Wales, 2024). The perception within the workforce that the general public don’t value their work contrasts with some data we have on the public perception of social care. In a 2023 survey of 1000 members of the general public, 72 per cent of people said they had confidence in people working in social care (Social Care Wales, 2023b).
Some participants noted that their job satisfaction was related to how they felt about their organisation. They discussed improvements that are being made and spoke positively about their relationships with other staff members (Social Care Wales, 2024):
“We're making those improvements. We've got action plans, we meet together, we train together, we look at our values and our objectives together and yeah, rolling it out and making changes... you have to have change to progress.” (Social care manager)
Social care workforce health and well-being framework
We developed, our workforce health and well-being framework: Your well-being matters (Social Care Wales, 2023a). This framework is designed to help social care, early years, childcare and play organisations create workplaces that support and promote the well-being of the workforce. The framework includes four commitments that help employers create safe working environments. We’ve also developed some resources to support this.
We run information sessions, training, and workshops to support mental health and well-being in the workplace including:
- compassionate leadership
- the role of workplace policy in supporting well-being
- creating space for supportive conversations
- creating a culture of speaking up safely
- psychological safety
- supporting people who are employed and have an unpaid caring role
- supporting the well-being of learners.
You can visit our Social Care Wales events page to find out more about the latest learning opportunities.
We’ve also developed e-learning-modules related to workforce well-being. In January 2025 we ran our first workforce well-being week that included free online events to learn about well-being and share best practice.
Social care workforce delivery plan 2024 to 2027
A Healthier Wales: our workforce strategy for health and social care was launched in 2020 and sets out our aims for the workforce over 10 years. The 2024 to 2027 workforce delivery plan builds on the progress made so far and includes actions based on the feedback we heard during our engagement work, consultation and the workforce survey. The plan sets out actions against the seven original themes of the workforce strategy to create an engaged, motivated, and healthy workforce. It also puts in measures to support attraction, recruitment, seamless working models, digital literacy, education, leadership, and planning for future social care needs. Seamless working here means that different parts of the social care and health workforce work together closely to support person centred care. It also has three cross cutting themes related to all actions, which are Welsh Language, inclusion, and well-being.
A national care and support service
The Welsh Government is exploring the potential of a national care and support service for children, families, and adults, which would be free at the point of need. An expert group has been formed to produce practical recommendations on how this can be achieved (Welsh Government, 2022).
The group has made suggestions around how to meet the values, principles, and vision set out in the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014. This includes supporting and valuing the workforce by agreeing national standards for appropriate pay and terms and conditions for all social care workers in Wales.
The national care and support service will offer central resources for the social care sector on Wales. This includes creating a sustainable learning and support environment, supporting the implementation of national standards, and collecting data and using it to implement positive change. This service will also support the Chief Social Care Officer to provide leadership and to develop and implement good practice and strategy within the sector. This includes championing inclusive practices such as the Welsh Government workforce equality, diversity and inclusion strategy: 2021 to 2026, the Anti-racist Wales action plan: 2022 and the LGBTQ+ action plan for Wales (Welsh Government, 2024b).
References -
Krause, G., Johnson, E. K. and Reynolds, R. (2024a) Workforce insight series: improving terms and conditions for the social care workforce in Wales 2023, the Insight Collective, Social Care Wales, available at https://insightcollective.socialcare.wales/our-work/find-research-and-data/workforce-insight-series/improving-terms-and-conditions-for-the-social-care-workforce-in-wales (accessed: 24 January 2025).
Krause, G., Johnson, E. K. and Reynolds, R. (2024b) Workforce insight series: valuing social care work 2023, the Insight Collective, Social Care Wales, available at https://insightcollective.socialcare.wales/our-work/find-research-and-data/workforce-insight-series/valuing-social-care-work-in-wales (accessed: 24 January 2025).
Krause, G., Deerfield, K. and Reynolds, R. (2025) Workforce insight series: improving terms and conditions for the social care workforce in Wales 2024, the Insight Collective, Social Care Wales, available at https://insightcollective.socialcare.wales/our-work/find-research-and-data/workforce-insight-series/terms-and-conditions-2024 (accessed: 25 February 2025).
NHS Wales (2024) NHS Wales Staff Survey 2023: National Findings Report, available at https://heiw.nhs.wales/files/staff-survey-2023-report/ (accessed: 24 January 2025).
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Office for National Statistics (2025) Personal well-being user guidance, available at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/wellbeing/methodologies/personalwellbeingsurveyuserguide (accessed: 3 February 2025).
Social Care Wales (2023a) Your well-being matters: workforce health and well-being framework, available at https://socialcare.wales/resources-guidance/health-and-well-being-resources/your-well-being-matters-workforce-health-and-well-being-framework (accessed: 15 April 2024).
Social Care Wales (2023b, unpublished) Public Perceptions Survey.
Social Care Wales (2024) Have your say – 2024 report findings, available at https://insightcollective.socialcare.wales/reports/have-your-say-workforce-survey-2024-full-report-and-summary-of-findings (accessed: 29 January 2025).
Social Care Wales (2025) Social care workforce report 2023, available at https://socialcare.wales/research-and-data/workforce-reports (accessed: 19 February 2025).
Urban Foresight and Deerfield (2024) Improved well-being and workforce retention: an evidence summary, the Insight Collective, Social Care Wales, available at https://insightcollective.socialcare.wales/evidence-summaries/improved-well-being-and-retention (accessed: 9 December 2024).
Welsh Government (2022) Establishing a national care and support service, available at https://www.gov.wales/establishing-national-care-and-support-service (accessed: 6 February 2024).
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