A new report by Care England in partnership with Sona reveals that adult social care is being sustained by workforce goodwill rather than system design.
According to Care England, the findings of Adult social care insights: workforce stability, digital impact and financial confidence show that, in the face of sustained workforce, financial, and system pressure, resilience across the sector is increasingly driven by the professionalism, commitment, and goodwill of staff, rather than by systems that are designed for the realities providers now face.
The report draws on a national survey of social care professionals alongside in-depth interviews with senior leaders across the sector.
Key findings include:
- Short staffing has become a baseline operating condition for many providers, even when services remain compliant with commissioning and regulatory requirements.
- Services are increasingly reliant on overtime, agency use, task redistribution, and managers stepping in on shift to maintain continuity of care, driving burnout, cost escalation, and long-term fragility.
- Workforce commitment to the sector remains high, but this loyalty is masking underlying system fragility and is not a sustainable substitute for proper system design.
- Pressures differ by service type and funding model, but structural strain is universal across the sector.
- Digital maturity is emerging as one of the strongest controllable stabilisers available to providers, improving visibility of demand, staffing risk, and cost pressures, and supporting more sustainable workforce deployment.
- The workforce is broadly ready for digital adoption, where technology reduces duplication, saves time, and improves safety, but constrained funding and fragmented systems limit progress.
Care England and Sona are calling for a shift in focus from short-term crisis management to long-term system resilience, including fair and sustainable funding, better alignment between commissioning and delivery, smarter workforce deployment, and treating digital capability as core infrastructure rather than an optional enhancement.
Professor Martin Green OBE, chief executive of Care England, said: “This research provides a powerful and evidence-based picture of the reality facing adult social care. Services are continuing to deliver high-quality care, but too often they are doing so by relying on the goodwill, professionalism and resilience of their workforce rather than on systems that are properly designed for the pressures they face. Short staffing, rising complexity of need, and financial strain are no longer exceptional challenges; they are the everyday operating environment for many providers.
“What this work makes clear is that the answer is not simply more recruitment, but better design: smarter workforce deployment, greater visibility of real demand, and systems that support staff rather than stretch them. It also underlines the growing importance of digital capability as essential infrastructure for sustainability, not an optional add-on.
“This is not about fixing individual providers. It is about recognising that the current system is no longer aligned to reality. If we are serious about protecting quality, supporting the workforce and securing the future of adult social care, we must move from coping to building long-term resilience, underpinned by fair funding and evidence-led reform.”
