Evaluating the Adult Social Work Apprenticeship Fund: Benefits, Challenges and Lessons

Posted on September 11, 2026 by Stephen Martineau

With adult social care facing ongoing workforce pressures, could additional social work apprenticeships be part of the answer? Nicole Steils, Mary Baginsky, Ian Kessler and Kalpa Kharicha present findings from the evaluation of the Department of Health and Social Care’s Adult Social Work Apprenticeship Fund 2024-2025. Full report (published 7 September 2026) available here | Project page at King’s. (710 words)

Social Work Apprenticeships in Adult Social Care

Adult social care services in England are facing major workforce challenges. There are ongoing difficulties in recruiting and keeping qualified social workers, while demand for services and the complexity of people’s needs continue to expand. Within this context, social work degree apprenticeships have become an increasingly important part of workforce planning. They provide an employment-based route to becoming a qualified social worker, while also aiming to support a sustainable workforce and widen access to the profession.

Social Work Apprenticeship Fund

In January 2024, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) introduced the Adult Social Work Apprenticeship Fund. The Fund aimed to help local authorities increase the number of social work apprenticeships and to expand support for apprentices by covering some costs that were not covered by the Apprenticeship Levy, now known as the Growth and Skills Levy.

The evaluation

Our evaluation looked at how the Fund was used, what helped or hindered the use, and what results it achieved. We examined data from 70 local authorities who received funding, and interviewed staff in 12 different local authorities. Continue reading →

You cannot fix the homecare workforce without fixing commissioning

Posted on September 8, 2026 by Stephen Martineau

Dr Jane Townson OBE is Chief Executive Officer of the Homecare Association. This post first appeared on the blog of the Adult Social Care Workforce Partnership (Care Work). (801 words)

Why do people leave care work, and what would persuade more people to join and stay? Research into pay, wellbeing, training, management, and culture can help employers improve working lives.

But in homecare, there is another question we cannot overlook: what kind of jobs does the system make it possible for employers to offer?

That is why the Care Work Partnership matters. Its research into how commissioning shapes pay, conditions and retention gets beneath the symptoms to examine the structures producing them.

Homecare shows the problem starkly. Councils and the NHS buy around 80% of homecare hours, much of it through frameworks that guarantee providers no volume of work and pay in arrears for contact time – sometimes literally the minutes recorded in someone’s home. In our research, only 1% of public bodies used block contracts guaranteeing income, while 61% bought no more than 500 hours per provider each week [1].

Three commissioning decisions shape the employment offer: how much local work each provider receives, the price commissioners pay, and whether they pay for planned capacity or individual contact minutes. Continue reading →

Death of William Herbert Laming, Baron Laming, of Tewin in the County of Hertfordshire

Posted on July 23, 2026 by Stephen Martineau

David N Jones, Chair of the Social Work History Network, remembers Herbert Laming. (309 words)

Herbert Laming, former Chief Inspector of the Social Services Inspectorate and leading member of the House of Lords, died on 15 July 2026 at the age of 89.

Herbert was known to many social workers having started his career as a Probation Officer in Nottingham in 1961. He became Director of Social Services in Hertfordshire in 1975 and was Chief Inspector from 1991-1998. He was created a life peer in 1998 and played a significant role in the House of Lords, being at different times Convenor of the Crossbench Peers and Chairman of Committees. He became a member of the Privy Council in June 2014. He is perhaps best known as the author of the inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbié and the later report following the death of Baby P. He did not hold back from robust criticism of social services, including responsible local government politicians, when he thought it appropriate.

It has been suggested that he once summoned local political leaders from one council to a meeting after a very poor inspection report. The leader apologised, saying that the councillors were just not aware how bad things had been. Herbert apparently replied ‘I am shocked that you are shocked and that you did not know the poor state of services for which you are responsible’. That approach significantly changed political engagement with social services across the country and the relationship between local politicians and Directors of Social Services.

Herbert was an advocate for social services and social work in the House of Lords and nationally and retained his identity as a social worker. He took an interest in international policy, for example playing a significant role in the development of social work in Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

His experience and wisdom will be much missed in Parliament, the profession and the country.

David N Jones is Chair of the Social Work History Network.

Why are people leaving social care jobs, and what could help them stay?

Posted on July 6, 2026 by Stephen Martineau

Wenjing Zhang (Research Fellow, KCL), Ann-Marie Towers (Professor of Social Care Research, KCL), Bo Hu (Associate Professorial Research Fellow, LSE) and Annette Boaz (Professor of Health and Social Care, KCL) discuss findings from the Leavers Study, which involved interviews with 30 people who had left adult social care roles within the previous two years. First published on the Care Work website. (747 words)

Adult social care depends on skilled, compassionate people. Yet across England, many workers are leaving the sector because the pressures of the job are becoming too difficult to sustain. This matters not only for staff wellbeing, but also for the quality and continuity of care that people receive.

To better understand why people leave adult social care and what might have encouraged them to stay, we carried out a study with former adult social care workers in England. The research builds on a 2023 national survey of more than 7,000 people working in adult social care in England. Around one in three said they intended to leave their job as soon as they found another one, with low pay, stress and burnout identified as the main reasons. By 2025, 12% of those who took part in a follow-up survey (1,073 people) had left adult social care altogether, including a small number who did not intend to quit two years earlier.

To better understand these decisions, we interviewed 30 people who had left adult social care roles within the previous two years. Participants included care workers, social workers, occupational therapists, personal assistants and managers. Some had moved into jobs in other sectors, while others had retired early or left work altogether because of health or caring responsibilities. Although every story was different, common themes emerged.

Continue reading →

Introducing the proposed work programme for the second half of the Health and Social Care Workforce Policy Research Unit contract (2026-2028)

Posted on June 3, 2026 by Stephen Martineau

As we move into the second half of the Policy Research Unit (PRU) contract, Health and Social Care Workforce PRU Director Professor Annette Boaz sets out our new work programme.

This blog outlines the priorities we have developed and the core projects we propose to take forward. (1047 words)

Reflecting on the First Half of the Contract (2024-26)

The first half of the PRU contract has been both productive and wide‑ranging. We have:

Completed the seven core projects agreed with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) Oversight Group
Delivered five responsive projects, addressing current and emerging policy needs
Concluded the final phase of work on the International Recruitment Fund for Social Care
Established a Workforce Panel, strengthening our engagement with people working across the health and social care sectors

Over the past six months, we have been consulting widely with stakeholders, including our Public Contributor Involvement and Engagement Advisory Group and the Workforce Panel, to identify priorities for the next phase. These discussions were shared with the Oversight Group in October 2025 and followed by meetings with DHSC policy and analytical teams. The final programme was agreed by the Oversight Group in February 2026.

A More Responsive Programme for 2026–2028

We anticipate an even greater emphasis on responsive research in Policy Research Units going forwards. To ensure we have the flexibility to meet this need, we are proposing a smaller set of four core projects. Continue reading →

How the Health T Level can help the NHS and social care address their workforce crisis and support inclusive growth

Posted on May 27, 2026 by Stephen Martineau

Professor Richard Griffin, MBE is Visiting Professor of Healthcare Management at King’s Business School. Today sees the publication of his report for The Gatsby Charitable Foundation: Inspiring the next generation: T-levels and health and social care workforce planning and progression (PDF). (640 words)

Both the NHS and social care face severe and enduring shortages of staff. Fit for the Future: The NHS 10 Year Plan for England published last year, highlighted the need for the NHS to build local, sustainable workforce pipelines and to recruit more people from the communities the NHS serves.

Recent research by King’s College London, funded by The Gatsby Charitable Foundation, suggests that T Levels – technical qualifications largely delivered by Further Education colleges – offer a route to support both objectives, alongside delivering wider benefits.

First introduced in 2020, T Levels are two-year technical qualifications for 16–19-year-olds, equivalent to three A Levels and including an industry placement. The T Level in Health launched in 2021 and is now the second most popular route, with almost 4,000 students in 2025. Continue reading →

A focus on dementia: ongoing research at the Unit

Posted on May 19, 2026 by Stephen Martineau

As part of Dementia Action Week, Unit researchers Olivia Luijnenburg, Fauzia Knight and Kritika Samsi highlight some of our ongoing work in dementia care research in different settings and topic areas: homecare, care homes, support for carers, community work, reducing inequalities in dementia care and methodological work. (775 words)

Homecare

Our homecare work has led to some novel online guides and resources. Colleagues have produced visual and academic outputs on what the role of Dementia Champions in the homecare sector entails. We have also helped to develop dedicated websites for people living with dementia and those who support them: Forward with dementia is an online guide for people living with dementia and carers to support them after a dementia diagnosis; DemCon 2 (currently under evaluation by homecare workers) is a web-based toilet-use and continence care intervention for homecare workers supporting people living at home with dementia. This project builds on two previous studies to co-design guidance for family carers and health professionals in this context. DemCon 2 will also develop further practical guidance about continence care for use by people living with dementia themselves.

We are also part of the Alzheimer’s Society funded GRACE (Goal diRected, Accessible, & Evidence-based Care for Families affected by dementia), which is a new way to support family carers and people living with dementia, through a manualised intervention using goal setting. We are also contributing to PALLDEM-Homecare, Continue reading →

ARC South London, Knowledge Exchange Event 2026: Doing inclusive applied health and care research in turbulent times

Posted on January 20, 2026 by Stephen Martineau

Emily Porro is an 15 January 2026. (1,003 words)

On 15 January, ARC South London held their Knowledge Exchange event at King’s College London, with the focus on doing inclusive applied health and care research in turbulent times. I attended the event as an awardee on ARC South London’s SHARE Research Capacity Building Programme, supporting practitioners to build capacity for research in their workplaces. As an outreach Navigator in St Mungo’s, working with people rough sleeping in South London, I feel strongly about ensuring service users with high support needs and facing deep social exclusion are meaningfully included in research, in order to share their depth of knowledge and opinion. I was therefore particularly excited about the theme of this event, and the presentations certainly stood out for embedding excluded groups within every stage of their work, from the researchers themselves to the methods they used. Continue reading →

Building research capacity in social care research to improve care for older people in care homes

Posted on January 8, 2026 by Stephen Martineau

The NIHR-funded SHARE programme aims to build social practitioners’ skills and knowledge, to use research to inform and improve services in the workplace. The SHARE programme is a collaboration between Kingston University and King’s College London working closely with NIHR ARC South London and the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Workforce. Filipa Maia, one of the people who have been awarded funding to take part in the programme, writes here about her experience of the SHARE programme and how her research could improve care for older people in care homes. Filipa is an education, research and engagement officer at Nightingale Hammerson, a care home provider. (1,249 words)

Please tell us a bit about your background and why you applied for the funding?

I moved to London in July 2021, shortly after completing a Master’s degree in Sociology at Nova University of Lisbon. I majored in English and Spanish studies, before my Master’s in Women’s Studies. By mixing my passions for literature and theatre, I wrote my thesis, “Women’s views of their own bodies: a study on representations of the female body in feminist theatre.” During that process, I discovered how much I like writing about people, their stories, their work and their motivations. Sociology felt like a good choice, a way to understand people more deeply in society and create space for their experiences to be explored and shared.

When I arrived in London, I stepped into the world of care by chance and found an entirely new way to connect with people. My first role was as a therapy assistant at Nightingale Hammerson, where I spent hours alongside residents and observed healthcare professionals of all kinds (physiotherapists, occupational therapists, healthcare assistants, registered nurses) all working with one shared goal of giving residents the best possible quality of life. Continue reading →

Health & Social Care Workforce:

Welcome to the blog of the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Workforce at King's College London