Supporting the Surge in Demand for Learning Disability, Mental Health & Children’s Services Staffing
Across the UK, service managers in children’s learning disability and mental health are facing the same mounting challenge: demand for high-quality children’s care continues to surge, while staffing capacity is struggling to keep pace. Recruiting and retaining the right disability support workers, healthcare agency staff, and specialist support staff has become critical to meeting requirements and maintaining safe, person-centred care for the young people who need it.
This is where relying on a quality care agency like Nurseplus can give you access to the kind of support staff you need.
So, why is demand rising?
There are plenty of factors driving this sharp increase, particularly in specialist children’s care, such as:
Growing complexity of needs – young people in community, residential, and educational settings presenting higher levels of support requirements, particularly around behaviour, autism, and dual diagnoses.
Increased referrals – children’s services and mental health teams are experiencing rising referral rates as public awareness of mental health and safeguarding grows.
Workforce shortages – nationwide staffing shortages, burnout, and increased turnover mean that many children’s care agencies are stretched.
For service managers, these factors create a daily balancing act: ensuring compliance, safeguarding outcomes, and maintaining service quality, whilst also trying to manage recruitment challenges.
How Agency Support Staff Can Help
With Nurseplus, our healthcare agency staff can play a vital role in bridging these gaps. What this means for you is that you can begin relying on us to be more than a last-minute solution and instead, an integral part of workforce planning.
These latest statistics highlight just how important flexible support staff have become:
When visa changes were recently implemented, international recruitment was reduced (which added over 100,000 care workers in 2023/24, but fell sharply in 2024/25). During this time, providers have turned to agency workers to fill the gaps.
There were still around 13,500 vacant positions in mental health services at the end of 2023/24, with some regions reporting vacancy rates over 12%, increasing demand for agency staff.
Nearly 20% of consultant psychiatrist posts in CAMHS in children’s services are vacant, with over a third either vacant or covered by temporary staff.
Working with Nurseplus and the flexibility of agency support staff will allow your service to:
Maintain safe staffing ratios during peak demand.
Access specialist skills when needed (e.g. autism-trained disability support workers).
Reduce strain on your staff and support retention.
We’ll work on building strong, ongoing relationships with you so we can understand your needs and ensure you have a consistent pool of reliable, well-trained children’s care professionals who understand your service and those you care for inside and out.
Some Helpful Tips for Children’s Service Managers
To help your team through any difficulties, we’d like children’s service managers to think about:
Working closer with agencies – not just as quick solutions or crisis points, but as part of longer-term workforce strategies.
Prioritise trained staff and consistency – work with Nurseplus and we’ll provide agency staff with relevant training and offer repeat staff for continuity of care.
Exploring blended staffing models – complement your permanent team with disability support workers who are flexible to cover variability in demand.
Monitoring staff wellbeing – we’ll help you ensure our temporary staff feel supported, which means you can focus on your permanent staff well-being, reducing turnover.
Let’s Look into the Future
Demand for learning disability, mental health, and children’s services staff isn't looking likely to ease in the short term. With vacancy rates remaining stubbornly high, and councils reporting they are still 25% short of the AMHPs (Approved Mental Health Professionals) needed to run a full 24-hour service. Even though the government has recruited 6,700 extra mental health staff towards its 8,500 targets, gaps remain across frontline roles.
For children’s service managers, the solution lies in adopting flexible staffing models, strengthening partnerships with healthcare agencies like Nurseplus, and prioritising workforce wellbeing.
Let us help you find the right support staff so your service can continue to meet these increases in demand without compromising on the safety or quality of care you provide.
