Staffordshire County Council is investing £2 million to recruit new workers to help meet demand for care in the home that has increased during and after the pandemic.

The authority already committed to a one-off investment in home care of more than £4 million last winter and also increased fees by 12 per cent in April.

Julia Jessel, Staffordshire County Council's Cabinet member for Health and Care, said: "The additional money already invested in home care has made a real difference for providers recruiting and retaining home care staff.

"However, there is a still a significant backlog of people who would benefit from home care and we have decided to employ people directly and use them in parts of the county that other providers are struggling to reach."

The service would provide around a thousand hours of home care a week, working between 7am and 10pm every day.

Recruits would be targeted from outside the home care sector, so that staff are simply not poached from other providers.

Approving the decision today, the county council's Cabinet heard that staff shortages in the home care sector mean around 200 people who would benefit from care are currently going without.

And temporary support brought in to ease the problem was also causing a backlog in reablement care for those leaving hospital.

Julia Jessel added: "A key focus of the home care plan is to include 'reablement' support so that people can regain their independence wherever possible and carry on as before, rather than become dependent on others.

"Current reablement services in the county, including those provided by the council's existing successful home care provider Nexxus, primarily focus on those discharged from hospital.

"This will focus on helping those who haven't been in hospital and need some support – and it will particularly target the north of the county to start with, where the backlog is greatest."