Companies providing care services have warned MSPs they are facing a “mass exodus” of staff amid unprecedented pressures on their workforce.
A group of care companies and other organisations said many care workers were leaving the sector for jobs elsewhere.
Some staff are leaving for similar roles within the NHS, where shifts are more regular and conditions are more favourable, the Health Committee was told.
It heard from the care providers on Tuesday, as part of continued scrutiny of plans for a new National Care Service, which will merge Scotland’s local services together.
The National Care Service Bill has faced criticism that it lacks clarity and could lead to spiralling costs.
Margaret McCarthy, chief executive of Crossroads Caring Scotland, said there had been a “mass exodus” of staff.
She said: “I think if we could come to a point where there’s consistency of rates of pay - that really means rates of how we’re paid for delivery - I think it will make a big difference.”
Nick Price, co-chair of the Granite Care Consortium, said: “We’ve always managed to recruit, but the recruitment pressures now are ones that we’ve never seen before.”
The primary reason is other jobs offering better pay and conditions, he said.
Price also noted that despite support for care workers during the pandemic, staff in the NHS were seeing much larger increases in pay than their counterparts in social care.
“They’re back to feeling undervalued,” he added.
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