Greenwich Cooperative Care Compact and Workers Network

About the project

Summary of project idea

The current adult social care system is in crisis, and the care market is dominated by private providers, where a focus on profit can lead to poor quality of care, unfair wages and lower staffing rates.

In the Royal Borough of Greenwich, we are exploring how we can support and grow new models of care based on the co-operative model and principles.

To do this, we need to engage our care workforce properly and our partners to understand our challenges and opportunities.

Our prototype will support the development of a care workers network to create space for conversation led by those delivering care to the most vulnerable.

Additionally, we are developing a partnership with the Health and Social Care workforce board to address workforce challenges, underpinned by cooperative principles.

By providing a clear path for how social care co-operatives can grow and contribute to a robust social care system, we’re backing alternative options that empower everyone.

What are the three key outcomes this project will achieve?

Within the wider co-operative commission aims, the policy prototype will specifically look to achieve the following:

We will obtain key learning in how to/how not to engage with care workers, a group that we have not historically engaged with directly outside of through their employers.

We will have succeeded if:

• We have learning on which engagement methods do or do not work best in contacting and recruiting care workers
• We have learning on whether different venues impact the engagement levels from providers.
• We have learning on what times best suit care worker engagement, recognising that many care workers work traditionally “unsociable” hours.
• We have learning on whether the method of reward and recognition affects engagement from care workers.

This will be measured by the RBG Integrated Commissioning Co-Production team by:

• Maintaining a log of responses/non-responses against each engagement approach, supplementing this with feedback from partners where available
• We have a log of the number of care workers engaged with the programme, broken down by market and compared to our local knowledge of total care workers in those respective markets
• We have qualitative feedback from care workers who engage on their experience.

We will gather learning on how best to engage education and training partners to establish a Health and Social Care workforce board to address challenges that are seen across the sector.

We know we will have succeeded if:

• We have learning on what makes partners want to engage with the board, and what approaches have not been successful
• We have learning on how to specifically engage Care providers with the Board and lead conversations around key workforce issues such as recruitment, retention, wellbeing, progression and training in a partnership way.

This will be monitored by the Head of Market Quality and Sustainability by:

• Monitoring responses to the engagement on establishing the board, identifying where there is interest and whether there are thematic areas of non-response or engagement.
• Identifying where the scope aligns across partners and where there is genuine interest in working together to address challenges
• Monitoring feedback from partners on whether they feel empowered to lead conversations and that their voice has been heard in the setting.

We will gather learning on how best to engage our care providers in both the care workers network and the Health and Social Care workforce board to address challenges that are seen across the sector.

We know we will have succeeded if:

• We have learning on how to specifically engage Care providers with the Board and lead conversations around key workforce issues such as recruitment, retention, wellbeing, progression and training in a partnership way.
• We have learning on how we best work with care providers, when seeking to engage with their workforces directly.
• We have learning on whether engagement changes depending on care market and provider size.

This will be measured by the Head of Market Quality and Sustainability by:

• Maintaining a log of responses/non-responses against each engagement approach, supplementing this with feedback from providers where available
• We have a log of the providers engaged with the programme, including feedback on what led them to engage.
• We have qualitative feedback from providers who engage on their experience. Lack of feedback will also potentially be considered as an indicator.