Healthier Working Lives for over Fifties Working in Residential Care, 2022-2023

McKie, Linda (2025). Healthier Working Lives for over Fifties Working in Residential Care, 2022-2023. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-857762

It is generally accepted that being in good quality, safe work is beneficial for one's physical and mental wellbeing. If this is the case, being able to work healthily and happily for longer would be significant step toward meeting the UK's Healthy Ageing Challenge that people should be benefitting from five more healthy and independent years of life by 2035.
However, the work can be physically and emotionally demanding, and it remains poorly rewarded. The care sector is worth circa £15.9billion to the UK economy, with over 5,500 providers. Over 80% of workers are women, with 21% of BAME origin, and some 30% are aged 50 plus with many of this age group working in supervisory and managerial roles.
The composition of the care workforce also reflects inequalities, reinforced by Covid-19 with the lower paid, older and BAME workers have disproportionately experienced illness and deaths across 2020. At that time there were 120,000 vacancies many filled by agency workers (with increased risked of virus transmission).
The research team comprised the universities of Edinburgh and King’s College London along with a range of partners; Scottish Care, which represents 400 organisations in the private, not for profit and charities sector of residential provision, Legal & General, one of the UK's leading providers of retirement villages, Codebase the largest technology incubator in the UK, which offers mentorship for the deployment of ideas, and design consultants Creative Venue. The team worked closely with care staff and the research team to explore and co-design possible solutions to the health, recruitment and retention, and professional development challenges that care workers face daily.
Across four stages over 36 months, the project reviewed existing knowledge, engaged with care sector staff to consider their priorities for working and role development, and drew upon ideas and activities across the team as a whole to run co-design workshops, develop ideas for outputs and products, along with a final review of the process and application of outcomes. At every stage, the role of the team was one of listening, exploring, ensuring critical conversations can take place in safe and exploratory ways, with ideas considered and potentially taken forward. Our Knowledge Network, co-chaired by Sophie Bowlby (Academic, Third Sector Board Member) and Stephen Coleman (CodeBase), ensured engagement from workers, care providers, design, incubator, and technology groups.

Data description (abstract)

The collection consists of two data sets: ethnographic data and co-design data.

Ethnographic data: At the first point of contact, care home managers were approached via one researcher working for Scottish Care, who attended closed forum meetings and pitched the programme to wider audiences who had preestablished connections to Scottish Care. These conversations were later followed up with 1:1 calls with the research team to further explain the programme and answer any questions which the care home staff might have, as well as talking about the planned in-person ethnographic work. Through these personal conversations, the researchers were able to build rapport and trust with the managers prior to meeting up on site, and then continued to deepen these relationships during field visits. The researchers emphasised that they were there to listen and connect with the staff in their familiar working environments, and ensured that any promised actions (i.e. vouchers to thank staff for their time) would be followed up promptly.

The ‘deep hanging about’ approach was helpful for the fieldwork in multiple ways. Firstly, it often served as a conversation opener (i.e. being in a certain area in the home where staff would work, which made it easy to approach workers i.e. asking about the machines in the laundry room, the steep stairs leading to certain areas, etc). It also put the staff at ease when talking to us since they were in a familiar space. Some staff would spontaneously offer us tours of the home or take us around the gardens to show us some of the work they did with/for the residents, i.e. gardening, the social spaces and staff rooms where people would mingle, which in turn led to further conversations with new people as well as unique insights happening at short notice. In addition to notes, forty four interviews were undertaken. These are combined in data from each of the six homes.

CoDesign data from work undertaken in the same 6 residential homes: October 2022 to March 2023 workshops in the six care homes structured using the novel Ripple Framework to enable engagement in uncertain times. Total of 310 person engagement points; 6 homes x 7 participants x 5 activities = 210. Approximately 40 care workforce participants engaged over the two phases, representing diverse roles and experiences (domestic, key worker, carer, senior carer, manager, owner) as well as care sector leads (Scottish Care), and three start-up businesses.

Participants built confidence in voicing their experience, developed their creativity, and defined their own priorities for change at different levels – local workforce culture, organisational use of technology, and sector-wide training development, all with a view to maximising quality time staff are able to spend with residents, and raising the external validation of their profession (thereby satisfying value-driven motivation for the work).

Data collection centred on methods such as the Circle of Care; how this is defined and impacts on work cultures, and what ideas might be further developed to enhance retention, recruitment and wellbeing at work.

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