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Refer a friend: can an app tackle the social care recruitment crisis?

From Penzance to Perth, a dire shortage of staff has deepened a crisis in adult social care already struggling to cope with a decade of cuts to budgets, rising demand for services and continued absence of sorely-needed reform.

Latest figures show that almost 1.5 million people work in the care sector in England alone. Yet many of the workforce feel undervalued, resulting in annual turnover exceeding 30% and 122,000 vacancies. The impact is seen in long waits for homecare packages, delayed hospital discharges and care home closures.

But there are glimmers of hope. In Cornwall, where a rapidly ageing population and seasonal job opportunities add to pressures on the sector, an innovative pilot aims to show the rest of the UK how care workers themselves can be the best recruiters – using technology already in their pockets.

Related: No job for a young man? Social care career myths busted

Over the past three months, 25 providers in the county, big and small, have signed up to Care Friends – a mobile app which taps into workers’ social networks. It has already shown potential to have a transformative effect, with providers receiving job applications within an hour of staff downloading the app on to their smartphones.

The app has been masterminded by Neil Eastwood, an adviser to the Department of Health and Social Care, who has spent the past 10 years investigating how to find, keep and develop care workers.

“Cornwall was chosen as test bed as care is the second largest business sector in the county, but the amount of churn is huge and stands at 36%,” says Eastwood, author of the book Saving Social Care.

“Care providers in the county get staff dropping out in the summer to take cash-in-hand, tourism-related jobs. People retire to Cornwall with no family to look after them and young people move away from the county. A key challenge is recruiting new people to the sector.”

Based on evidence showing employee referral schemes are the best means of recruitment, workers download the app and share job vacancies with their contacts and social networks. Working on the same principle as a reward card, they earn points for referring a friend. Typically, one point equals £1, but employers can ask to vary this.

Unlike most other employee referral schemes, whereby staff are rewarded only once an individual is in post, the app incentivises them by offering rewards for different stages of the recruitment process. Points are paid in the following month’s pay, or can be saved until Christmas.

The development of Care Friends, part-funded by EU regional development money and sector skills agency Skills for Care, has already generated widespread interest elsewhere in the UK and overseas. Its emergence coincides with the launch of the second phase of a Department of Health and Social Care recruitment campaign for the care sector in England, called Every Day is Different.

Related: Homecare agencies are at breaking point. Reform is long overdue | David Brindle

Initial trials of an early version of Care Friends at a care home in Surrey found that almost 30% of staff started to refer people – compared with about 8% in traditional (non-app) referral schemes. “If you extrapolate that more widely across the workforce, our 120,000 vacancies in social care would be gone in a few months,” says Eastwood. “So the potential to tap into the community connections of caring people in the workforce I think is potentially very exciting.”

Providers are pinning their hopes on the app. Richard Nixon-Eckersall is newly-appointed director of workforce and organisational development for Cornwall Care, a charity with 1,400 staff working in 16 residential, nursing and dementia homes across the county. It also supports more than 1,000 people to live in their own homes.

“We have a turnover rate of 30% and attempts to recruit staff in the past have been hampered by [interview] no-shows,” Nixon-Eckersall says. “It is very apparent that some people come to interview because they need to be seen as actively seeking work. However, they have no intention of taking up a job. We know that the most successful recruiting mechanism for carers is carers themselves. We are very hopeful that the Care Friends app will turbo-boost recruitment.”

However, it is not just recruitment that the app can transform. According to Beverly Futtit, chief executive of Cornwall Adult Health and Social Care Learning Partnership, which promotes workforce development in the county, it has the power to change the image of being a care worker.

“By using this app, people can show they are proud of their work by recommending other people. And the reward system can be used beyond recruitment: staff can be rewarded if they take a short-notice cover slot. The potential is enormous,” says Futtit.

Rob Rotchell, Cornwall council’s cabinet member for adults, believes the app could also be used by the NHS to recruit staff. “We need to ensure that details about employment opportunities are available not just in social care, but in the NHS as well,” he says. “The app is one way forward to improve things.”

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Experience: ‘I love the job. I’ll do it until I need a carer’

Kerry Munro used the Care Friends app to let friend Sam Mitchell know about a vacancy

When long-time care worker Kerry Munro heard her employers had a staff vacancy, she knew just the person for the post. Using the Care Friends app, she shared the opportunity with Sam Mitchell, the daughter of a friend she used to work with.

Within minutes, Mitchell, a mother of four, had applied to be a homecare worker with North Hill Home Care in St Austell, Cornwall. Within two weeks she had completed her initial handling training and was waiting for a start date.

“I hadn’t considered a job as a carer before, but I am really looking forward to starting,” says 33-year-old Mitchell. “I have spent the last 12 years bringing up my family.”

She has a 12-year-old daughter, a nine-year-old son and twin boys who are aged 18 months. She plans to start working 16 hours a week, spread across two evenings and a weekend shift – with her partner helping out with childcare.

Munro, 59, who has juggled work with bringing up her children and helping out with her grandchildren, has spent the last 30 years on the care frontline.

“I love the job,” she says. “I think I will be doing this until I need a carer myself. You can go into a house and when you leave know that you have made a difference to a client and their partner. It’s almost like you’re part of the family.

“But it is not just about making cups of tea and it can be very hard work. I recommended Sam as she knows what is involved as her mum is in the care profession. I know she will be good with clients and reliable.”