RADICAL change may be needed to fix the underlying problems in Dorset’s care sector.

For years it has been plagued by high staff turnover, widespread dissatisfaction with wage rates, a lack of recognition, not being paid for travel time between clients and a lack of career progression.

Some of those issued have started to be addressed – but many remain.

Increasingly care providers have been handing contracts back to Dorset Council because they have been unable to find enough staff – with some providers going out of business altogether.

In Dorset six providers left the sector just before Christmas with 82 home care packages returned to the council.

Nationally employers say there has been an acceleration in the number of care staff leaving, often for only slightly better pay in retail or hospitality, with workforce turnover at one third of all staff every year.

Weymouth Green Party councillor and local GP Jon Orrell says he had witnessed a decline in the sector over the years which needs to be urgently addressed because the market system was often failing.

He told a council overview and scrutiny committee that maybe the time had now come for Dorset Council to consider taking more services back and run them directly.

The current model is based on long-term block contracts awarded by the council to organisations, such as Care South and to other providers.

An initial Dorset Council “fair cost of care” exercise has suggested that by 2025 minimum wage rates for care staff needed to be £10.50 an hour which it believes would stabilise turn-over rates and help with staff retention. It is also looking at a fair payment for travel time and handovers between carers and the development of a career path for care staff.

Lib Dem group leader on the council Nick Ireland says the suggested rate of pay, given current cost of living rises, is likely to be considered inadequate to recruit and retain staff and said that some organisation were already paying more than the Government set rate of 45p per mile for travel – although many care workers were receiving payments at way below that rate.

Cllr Orrell said that the care sector might be even more fragile than the report suggested with many companies using business models linked to interest rates which, if they rose, would instantly but some providers in financial difficulty.

He said he found it hard to see why contracts given by the council to providers allowed for 20 to 40 per cent as a profit – when it might be better to use the money to invest directly in having its own staff and the quality of care.

Dorchester councillor Molly Rennie said she was shocked by the turnover figures and said the council, and the care sector, needed to rapidly address making staff feel more valued, in line with the esteem given to caring staff within the NHS. She said using zero hours contracts and not paying for all travel was not the way to do that.

She said it was telling that many had left the sector to go into hospitality or retail where they were often also on zero hours contracts, low pay and job insecurity.

Cllr Piers Brown said he also worried about the high numbers leaving the sector and said that even if that could be slowed only slightly it could make a large difference.

“How do we create the opinion that going into care is a career choice and a good one?” he said.