Prime Minister Andy Burnham told an audience in North London on 29 July that social care workers should be “the best paid people in society, not the worst”, and set out pay, training, support and job security as the immediate work of lifting the sector closer to NHS standards.
He brought Baroness Casey’s Independent Commission on Adult Social Care forward by a year, to report in summer 2027, and asked a ministerial group of Yvette Cooper, Angela Rayner and John Healey to look at how the Fair Pay Agreement becomes a wider reform of the workforce.
Where the detail sits
The Fair Pay Agreement for adult social care in England was established under the Employment Rights Act 2025, with the Adult Social Care Negotiating Body beginning work next year, £500m allocated and the first agreement due to take effect in 2028/29. Alongside it sits a proposal to create progression routes from social care into NHS roles and to treat the two as one workforce. The Nuffield Trust has pointed out that opening those routes, without social care itself becoming as attractive a place to work, carries a risk of the care sector losing experienced people to the health service. That makes retention the measure that will show whether the reform is working, and it is the measure we have been building evidence on since 2020.
What we contract for
As an employee-owned organisation, valuing the workforce shapes how we contract with our colleagues. We ran our first block pay shifts in early 2020 and completed the rollout across every contract by 2023, employing Care Workers at their contracted rate for the whole time they are at work including travel time, training and gaps between care calls, working in neighbourhood teams. Colleagues elect VOICE representatives in every service, all of whom attend our advisory Board meetings and are involved in appointing Board members.
Building clinical capability inside social care
Be Caring is investing in essential clinical expertise that strengthens the skills and confidence of its homecare teams. Our Occupational Therapy Practice Lead, Kate, works alongside colleagues to include strength-based assessment, rehabilitation and positive risk-taking into everyday care, while supporting the development of our wider workforce. It is a role Be Caring funds directly because no individual care contract pays for it.
For Kate, who began her career as a homecare worker before qualifying as an Occupational Therapist, the role is also an opportunity to make better use of the knowledge and potential that already exists within homecare teams;
“I believe the homecare workforce is one of this country’s greatest untapped resources. Having worked in both homecare and the NHS, I’ve seen just how much knowledge and expertise homecare teams have to offer, and being at Be Caring feels like coming home. I can’t wait to help unleash the full power of the people that work here.”
– Kate, Occupational Therapy Practice Lead
That approach can already be seen in the way Be Caring is developing new skills across the organisation. Following a ten-week placement with our Sheffield team, Sarah-Jane, an MSc Occupational Therapy student from the University of Derby, developed a falls prevention training programme based on NICE guidelines, which is now available across Be Caring.
Our Leeds-based Trainer qualified in December 2025 to deliver in-house blood pressure monitoring training. Care Workers in Morley can now take readings, report concerns to the office and signpost people to the most appropriate support according to their results and age.
But this is more than just adding new clinical skills; it is also about giving Care Workers the time and confidence to understand what matters to the person they are supporting. Kate believes Be Caring’s Above and Beyond approach creates an important opportunity to do exactly that;
“Above and Beyond feels like Be Caring’s superpower. When there is time to see people as more than a list of tasks, and ask what actually matters to them, we can 100% change lives. In occupational therapy we say doctors add years to your life, but Occupational Therapists add life to your years. This is exactly what Above and Beyond can do, and I’m here to help with the nitty gritty of it.”
– Kate, Occupational Therapy Practice Lead
What it has done for retention
Between January and May 2026 we recruited 260 new colleagues and held a retention rate of 56%, against a retention rate of 36% across the same months in 2025. In Leeds, where the model was developed, average length of service across the workforce rose by eight months over a two year period.
What Colleagues Say
Our Summer 2026 colleague survey, completed by 289 Home Support colleagues across June and July, returned a Net Promoter Score of +73 as an employer and +80 as a care or support provider, with 89.3% recommending us as a place to work. In October 2021 that figure was 49.1% and our employer score was +9. Over the same five year period, colleagues feeling listened to rose from 51.1% to 87.2% and recognition in the past month from 42.6% to 78.9%, while 97.9% now say they have the training they need for their role and 93.4% agree their work is valued. Across our LIFE supported living, outreach and complex care services, a further 71 colleagues responded, with 94.4% proud to work for Be Caring.
“Being a valued and respected co-owner at Be Caring brings me so much workplace satisfaction, and knowing the work I do makes a lasting difference in our local communities makes me proud.”
– Craig, Newcastle
What Clients Experience
Through 2025 we completed 1,234 client satisfaction surveys, and 93.8% of clients rated their care as Good or Outstanding. Our Leeds service is rated Outstanding by the Care Quality Commission.
Sharing the Model
Skills for Care has published our approach as a free toolkit for providers and commissioners, covering planning, finance, digital, workforce and outcomes, and we have built Careview 360, the system that runs the model day to day.
Sharon Lowrie, our Chief Executive and elected Chair of the Homecare Association, spent two hours with Baroness Casey and her team in November 2025 at an event held with the University of Sheffield’s Centre for Care and Sheffield City Council, discussing outcomes-based commissioning, prevention and digital technology in care. We will be contributing evidence from our services to the Commission.
The Big Conversation on Care
Baroness Casey launched the Big Conversation on Care on the same day as the speech. It runs until April 2027 and asks who adult social care should support, what families can reasonably be expected to do, and how the country should pay for it.
Colleagues, the people we support and their families can take part here: https://caseycommission.co.uk/bigconversation/take-part/
