Social care: Council boss insists changes to services in Harrogate and North Yorkshire 'only temporary'

Richard Webb, director of health and adult services at North Yorkshire County Council, said staff were being redeployed and residents offered temporary stays at different care homes in response to the staffing shortages that are crippling the struggling sector.

There are around 1,000 job vacancies across the county and the situation has only worsened with around 240 staff recently choosing to leave their jobs due to mandatory rules on Covid vaccinations.

This includes five council staff in Harrogate and Mr Webb said it has meant some services in the area have had to be "downscaled".

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, he said: "We have had to redeploy staff and put them in the most urgent areas such as getting people out of hospital and helping those in crisis.

"We are also offering people respite and short breaks in other parts of the county. If you live in Harrogate, this could include us offering you care in Skipton, Scarborough or Northallerton.

"It is important to say though that these are only temporary changes.

"And we are still looking to provide a service to everyone - it is just currently not in the format they would normally have."

24 Dogs of Christmas Campaign: Meet staffy Flynn who is bound to warm the hearts of all Harrogate dog lovers

Mr Webb said the temporary changes would be kept under review and that normal services would resume "as soon as we can" when job vacancies are filled.

How quickly these empty roles can be filled will be key to how the sector copes over the coming months, with a report to councillors this week warning care services are facing their “toughest winter for at least a generation”.

A meeting of North Yorkshire County Council's executive on Tuesday was told that a rising number of care homes have closed due to financial or staffing issues, leaving the council to act as a provider of last resort.

There was also a further warning that while the government’s plan to speed up hospital discharges remained in place, it had led to a 42% increase in workload for staff providing assessments.

This comes just weeks after the council launched a major recruitment campaign.

Mr Webb said the Make Care Matter campaign had made a good start with hundreds of applications, around 40 interviews and 15 new staff appointed.

However, he added it would take much more than a recruitment drive to fix the sector's deep-rooted problems.

He said: "Everywhere around the country is facing some big challenges with social care at the moment, but we are well placed in North Yorkshire.

"The economy has gone through a massive jolt and you only have to walk around Harrogate or Ripon to see how all businesses are advertising for staff.

"We are pushing very much on recruitment and working with the care sector to provide extra money, but this needs a national solution.

"The wider issues at play here are that we need to recognise care workers on the same level as nurses and doctors so that the hugely valuable work they do is rewarded in the same way.

"We have got some movement nationally with the reforms recently announced by the Prime Minister, but we haven't got anything yet on these key issues of staff pay and recognition."

By Jacob Webster, Local Democracy Reporter