RECENT NEWS

The Workforce Development Fund (WDF) 2021-22 is now open to adult social care employers in England to support the development of their staff at all levels.

A new £48m package of funding to support social care in Wales has been announced by deputy minister for social services Julie Morgan.

Two care home workers have launched an eleventh-hour bid to overturn the government’s mandatory Covid jabs policy, according to newspaper reports.

An additional 35,000 to 70,000 care workers will be needed across England due to the government’s mandatory vaccinations policy, according to Care England.

Elysian Residences has taken the wraps off the show apartment at its new Wildernesse House retirement village at a converted stately home in Kent dating back to 1327.

Target Healthcare REIT has raised £125m through an oversubscribed share issue to help fund an acquisition spree including 18 operational care homes worth a combined £230m.

A buddy pilot programme for new starters at Care UK is boosting staff retention, the care provider has said as it launched the programme officially during Professional Care Workers’ Week earlier this month.

HC-One is to build a new luxury unit at its Victoria Manor care home in Edinburgh as part of an £8.5m group-wide refurbishment programme.

Researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have launched a project to increase the number of care home staff that take up the ‘flu vaccine.

Care England has backed a Department of Health and Social Care consultation on making the Covid-19 and flu vaccination a condition of deployment for frontline workers in health and wider care settings.

Holmes Care Group has named Alex Wilson as its new managing director following former incumbent Sharifa Lakhani’s promotion to chief executive officer.

Global property consultancy Knight Frank has bolstered its Seniors Housing offering by adding three senior surveyors to the existing team.

The government will limit lifetime care costs to £86,000 for individuals in England from October 2023 as part of its long-awaited plans to fix social care.

Wellbeing Care, a family-run provider for older adults living in Suffolk and Northamptonshire, has enrolled staff in a training programme designed to enable participants to understand how to communicate with people living with dementia.

Social care bodies across England have joined together to launch Social Care Day of Remembrance and Reflection honouring the work and lives of the adult social care workforce during the pandemic.

Care England has written to social care minister Helen Whately to highlight growing sector concern over an absence of central guidance and support regarding exemptions to mandatory vaccination rules for care home staff.

The government must immediately repeal the mandatory Covid jab rules for care home staff in England to avert a staffing crisis that threatens to overwhelm the sector, according to UNISON.

Older people in care homes in Wales will benefit from new facilities and improved services with the help of a £4m investment in the first half of 2021 by the Development Bank of Wales.

Around 50,000 people with dementia in England will be denied care home beds by 2030 due to demand outstripping supply, according to research by the Alzheimer’s Society.

The UK is set to unveil plans in the coming days to reform social care funding through an increase in national insurance contributions and a Dilnot-style cap on individual care costs, according to national media.