England’s adult social care workforce is large and under constant pressure. Skills for Care’s 2025/26 workforce intelligence estimates about 1.59 million filled posts, with a vacancy rate of 6.2%. That vacancy figure is the lowest for a decade, but it does not mean the pressure has gone away.
For care and support workers, the people who deliver most of the everyday support, turnover remains high. Skills for Care estimates their turnover rate at 26.9% in 2025/26, around 221,000 leavers in a year. People still leave early, especially in the first months, and employers still spend time replacing and inducting staff who never had enough space to do the job well.
Recording, handovers and paperwork are not the only reasons people leave. Pay, contracts, travel, leadership and wellbeing all matter. But when documentation is slow or confusing, it takes time away from people, increases stress at the end of a shift and makes continuity harder for the next person coming on. That is the problem Pelp Staff is being built to reduce.
What the workforce data is telling us
Skills for Care’s state of the sector reporting for 2025/26 shows progress in some areas and strain in others. Filled posts have risen, vacant posts have fallen, and independent-sector turnover overall has eased compared with the pandemic peak. At the same time, care and support worker turnover is still among the highest of any role, and registered managers remain hard to fill, with a vacancy rate of about 10%.
Retention research from Skills for Care also points to a familiar pattern: people are most likely to leave early, turnover is higher for younger workers and for those travelling further to work, and workplaces with stronger induction, development and leadership tend to keep people longer. Continuity of staff is not only a workforce issue. It is a quality issue for the Individuals being supported.
Admin time is care time
Government and NHS England guidance on digital social care records has been clear for some time: digitising records can free up time for direct care. DHSC has cited an estimate of more than 20 minutes saved per care worker per shift where digital records and faster handovers replace slower paper or fragmented systems.
That saving only happens if the digital system is easier than what it replaces. A rapid evaluation of digital social care record implementation in England found that benefits arrive when providers plan the change properly, train staff, and choose systems that work offline, handle images and analysis well, and fit real workflows. Poor supplier choice, weak change management and unreliable connectivity led to frustration and, in some cases, buyer regret.
Where recording still gets in the way
Ask support workers where their shift slows down and the same themes appear: notes that take too long at the end of a visit, handovers that rely on memory or a rushed verbal update, information split across folders, forms and messages, and systems that need a good signal when staff are in someone’s home or a basement office.
The evaluation evidence also shows that devices are not neutral. Some staff delay recording because typing into a phone during care feels awkward for the Individual or their family. The answer is not to abandon digital recording. It is to make recording quicker, more natural and easier to finish when the moment is right, without losing accuracy.
- Notes that force tick boxes instead of the person’s own words
- Handovers that do not pull through the day’s important events
- Systems that fail without Wi‑Fi
- Training that assumes everyone is already confident with apps
- Managers who only see incomplete paperwork after the shift has gone wrong
What this means for technology
Technology will not fix pay or commissioning on its own. It can reduce avoidable friction for the people delivering care. The GOV.UK guidance on choosing digital social care records is practical on this point: identify the time-consuming parts of documentation, involve staff early, plan a phased change and make sure the supplier supports training.
For a product team, the test is simple. Does the system help a support worker finish an accurate note faster? Can the next shift understand what matters without hunting? Can a manager see gaps before they become inspection or safety problems?
How Pelp Staff is being designed around this
Pelp Staff is the day-to-day product we are building for support workers and care staff. The aim is not another form library. It is a way to record everyday support around each Individual, then pass that information on clearly.
- Record in your own words, with structured templates where they help
- Use voice and optional writing assistance to tidy a draft, then review it before anything is saved
- Keep offline drafts and synchronise when the connection returns
- See the day’s tasks, visits and appointments in one place
- Hand over what the next shift needs, including summaries that start from the day’s records
- Open an Individual’s profile, preferences, risks and recent history before support begins
Retention is about feeling able to do the job
Skills for Care’s retention work stresses induction, leadership, development and wellbeing. Recording tools sit underneath those themes. When staff can complete notes without staying late, when handovers are clearer, and when new starters can find what they need about an Individual quickly, the job becomes more doable.
Pelp is still in development. We are not claiming to solve workforce shortages. We are building the staff experience first, because documentation that respects people’s time is one of the few levers a care technology product can pull every day.