Like many professions within the health sector, there is an obvious shortfall of social care professionals. A look through any national or regional newspaper informs us that there is an abnormal quantity of social work vacancies at local governments across the country. Indeed, the government launched a massive advertising and publicity campaign in 2004 to try and stimulate, to the tune of 45,000, new entrants to the social care profession. The Employers' Organisation for Local Government (http://www.lg-employers.gov.uk) is still crying out for qualifies social care professional to take up positions in regions across the country.

So far these targets have failed to materialise and universities open proclaim the social care sector as being an open opportunity for interested students to pursue while specialist recruitment sites have emerged, joining the national recruitment agencies in trying to bridge the gap between supply and demand (http://www.rigsocialcare.co.uk, http://www.joslinrowe.com) . Whilst the universities have been successful in recruiting more applicants to social care courses, the 3 and 4 year gap between university and workplace means that agencies retain the shortfall in candidates for social care jobs.

Short term solutions to the problem are hard to find. The government requires a higher number of new recruits, but the university and college courses mean that the first batch of social care professionals entering the work place as a result of the initiative is at least 3 years away. In the meantime, the regional and national newspapers advertise in hope that someone can fill their social care jobs vacancies.