New Strategy To Support Social Care Nursing Placements Launched

Skills for Care, in partnership with the Council of Deans of Health, has launched the first ever strategy for social care in practice learning and curriculum of nursing education programmes.

The strategy was launched  at an online event on 23 July 2025. During the event, attendees had the opportunity to hear from a variety of key speakers, including The Minister of State for Care Stephen Kinnock and Chief Nurse for Adult Social Care Deborah Sturdy, and learn more about the strategy and how social care can become a placement of choice for all student nurses and nursing associates.

The Social Care Nursing Placement Strategy aims to foster stronger connections between students, care providers, employers, the social care workforce, universities and colleges, to enhance and promote understanding and engagement with social care settings and provide sustainable high quality practice placement opportunities. It also sets out the recommendations needed to ensure the future workforce has the knowledge and skills to support population health in England in the very near future as well as to meet the future direction of the 10-year plan for health.

The Council will be working with Skills for Care to promote social care as an opportunity for placements and as a career choice. This collaboration involves the launch of a new social care network for students and early career nurses and supporting the implementation of the strategy with our members and stakeholders.

The Council’s continued partnership with Skills for Care aims to achieve the following objectives:

• Promote the opportunities that social care has to offer.
• Maintain and grow the quality and capacity of social care practice placements.
• Increase students’ understanding of social care and inspire them to work in the sector.
• Work with our members to help embed the social care placement strategy into the healthcare education sector.

Chief Executive of the Council of Deans of Health, Ed Hughes, said:
“The Council of Deans of Health is proud to be working with Skills for Care to develop and deliver a social care placement strategy for nursing education that provides opportunities for members to expand their placement portfolios and for students to experience a range of settings to help their development as healthcare professionals.”

“We are working with our member universities and colleges to encourage more nursing students to look at a career in social care environments. This strategy sets out some valuable steps towards achieving this shift to making social care a destination of choice.”

Oonagh Smyth, CEO, Skills for Care, says:
“Nursing in social care is a critical part of our social care workforce and this strategy will offer future graduates into the health and care system a clear understanding of how people drawing on care and support access health and care services.”

“The skill and expertise of care professionals working in people’s own homes and communities offers rewarding learning and development opportunities across the breadth of nursing education programmes. This strategy gives much needed recognition of the complexity, professional autonomy and leadership of nursing roles in social care.”

Professor Martin Green OBE, Chief Executive of Care England commented:
“We are proud to have long championed the inclusion of adult social care within nursing education, and today’s strategy marks a vital and visionary step forward which we wholeheartedly support. Nursing in social care is uniquely complex, skilled, and deeply human; it demands clinical expertise, leadership, and compassion in equal measure.”

“By offering student nurses meaningful placements in care homes, supported living, and home care, we open their eyes to the reality of integrated, person-centred care delivered at the heart of communities. These experiences will not only enrich their training but inspire many to see adult social care as the rewarding and impactful career it truly is. This is how we build a confident, connected, and compassionate workforce for the future; and we welcome this bold commitment to making that future a reality.”