To ask the Minister of Health to detail any measures being taken to improve recruitment and retention of domiciliary care workers, including in rural areas, given that travel time and coverage can present additional challenges.

The Health and Social Care Trusts have an ongoing recruitment process in place for home care staff. In addition, the Trusts and the Independent Sector Providers run targeted recruitment in areas of high demand as and when required, this includes rural areas where it can be difficult to secure adequate staffing levels.

There are a number of factors that present particular challenges to the recruitment and retention of home care staff. These challenges include the unsocial element of the role (a service that is deployed 365 days per year), the challenges of lone working, the requirement to be a car driver with access to a car and of accruing very high mileage and the increasing complexity of service user’s needs and the associated responsibilities involved for home care care staff.

Over the past five years, my Department has focused on providing additional financial support to the independent home care sector across Northern Ireland with a view to attracting more staff into this area of work.

In 2023/2024 my predecessor, Minister Swann had approved a 7.93% uplift for the Independent Sector Home Care Providers, which uplifted the hourly rate for home care to £18.54 per hour.

Subsequent to this, in 2024/2025 a £70 million support package for social care providers and hospices was agreed. This led to a further uplift in the hourly rate for home care to £20.01. This decision had been made in recognition of the important role played by Independent Sector providers and their requirement as an employer to pay the National Living Wage.

In March 2025, I approved a 6.7% uplift for the Independent Sector Home Care minimum hourly rate which brought the minimum hourly rate for homecare to £21.35.

There is a continuing focus on the need to further uplift this rate in line with the Real Living Wage. This is based upon a recognition of the valued work that homecare workers carry out for many of our most vulnerable people and also in recognition of the need to both stabilise the current homecare workforce and to attract more people to work in this sector.

The initiatives put in place by the work of the Social Care Collaborative Reform Board (led by my Department), have adopted a particular focus on maximizing and growing home care. Some of these initiatives include:

Right-sizing packages of care for individuals and re-cycling care hours back into the system to create more capacity.

Focus on prevention and early intervention

Provision of support through multi-disciplinary teams attached to an individual’s GP and local neighbourhood networks.

Promotion of all elements of Self-Directed Support to empower individuals to manage their own care needs.

Introduction of the Social Care Workforce Strategy 2025-2035

Notwithstanding the work being carried forward in this area, the challenges continue to be considerable.

I would ask that you and other MLAs continue to offer assurance to your constituents that improving services for our families and communities remains a priority for my Department.