Nowadays, we have many job openings all over the states and even the world. Thousands of spaces are opening daily, with more being posted now. We can conclude the COVID-19 pandemic partially amplified this. However, this nursing and healthcare staff shortage has been rampant for decades. Although this is true, many are looking to fill those spaces permanently or for indefinite amounts of time to combat this problem. On the contrary, some nurses are leaving the healthcare field amid the pandemic due to the heightened stress and worse working conditions due to the virus. Something majorly impacted by this is the adult social care sector.
While the world has witnessed a quick decline in workers everywhere, the social care sector has declined more over the past decade. Most importantly, our social care sector has lost our critically needed registered nurses (RNs). Over the past decade, we've seen a loss in over 18,000 RNs working in the social care field. Additionally, in every profession qualified in social care, there has been a loss of over 55,000 workers in just the past year. The social care sector is losing workers at an alarming rate, only causing the percentage of workers we will need in the future to rise. It's estimated that the number of workers will need a 27% increase by 2035 if we want to keep up with the growing demand for healthcare.
However, if we're seeing such a detrimental decline in workers worldwide, there must be a reason for them leaving in such large amounts, right? There is a reason for such a loss in filled positions, another issue that must be fought to keep our healthcare system from disarray. This elephant in the room is the issue of nursing burnout. While not a medically recognized condition, burnout is caused by prolonged amounts of stress, affecting you both physically and mentally. Due to this, experiencing burnout can be incredibly tiring and challenging to get out of if not taken care of quickly, resulting in many leaving their work positions as the stress is too much to handle.
What Exactly is Social Care?
If you're unfamiliar with the categorization of the social care sector, you may be asking, "what is social care?" luckily, you're in just the right place to learn what you need to know, the true basics of social care! Social care is offered worldwide, although depending on the location, how it works and what exactly is given could vary. In the UK, especially in England, adult social care is incredibly critical, and their local authorities are legally obliged to assist those in need of social care. This is also where we've seen such a significant decline in filled working positions. Resulting in a rising dilemma as social care is crucial to the UK's healthcare.
The base definition of social care is precisely what it sounds like: care with many social interactions and requirements. This category of care is in place to assist those who may be vulnerable, unable to help themselves or need additional support, such as the elderly, those with mental illness, and disabilities. Adult social care makes up a massive chunk of all that social care, assisting thousands of patients worldwide every day. This type of care is typically not offered in hospitals and is usually seen at patients' homes or dedicated facilities for social care such as nursing homes.
The Direness of the Nursing Shortage
Overall, while social care continues to see this enormous decline in workers, every healthcare sector is experiencing a damaging loss that will continue to get worse over time, leaving us in a critical condition that needs to be fought or the healthcare system as we know it will experience significant damage. This heavy loss for workers will result in worse patient outcomes, more deaths, and more accidents while on the job for those still working amid this dilemma. Among all these, nursing burnout is still a rising concern. Those still working the job among all the empty positions will be forced to overwork, resulting in a higher chance of experiencing burnout, which means even more nurses are lost amidst it all.
Thankfully, while all this is happening, countless new workers are coming into the field, whether working full-time or PRN, in many locations. Here at Nursa, we assist in the fight against the nursing shortage by helping those needing a job find the right job or jobs.
