About Us

What is the NMDS-SC?

The NMDS-SC gathers information about the social care sector. It has been designed to gather information about services and information about the social care workforce.

This information is important for several of reasons:

for Employers

• The NMDS-SC provides a single source of basic information about services and workers that will enable employers to plan their business activity and determine the skills base needed by the workforce now and into the future.
• The NMDS-SC will provide reports to employers that will enable informed business decisions and enable employers to access different staff development or business development funding.
• The NMDS-SC Online enables employers to keep their workforce information in the workplace, its easy to use and to update records and for those organisations who do not have an electronic staff record system the NMDS-SC provides one!

for Strategic Planning

• The NMDS-SC will enable planning at a local, regional and national level. This is critical in providing stability and growth in the social care industry.

for Commissioners

• The NMDS-SC at a local or regional level will provide the information about services, capacity and workforce skills to take the guesswork out of resource allocation and meeting the social care challenge.

for Funding Agencies

• The workforce information will enable funding agencies to support employers and business development in the sector by targeting resources to where they are needed.

for Inspectors

• The NMDS-SC provides up to date workforce information that will meet the inspection requirements of the National Minimum Standards.

for Policy Makers

• The NMDS-SC will enable Skills for Care to reflect the real cost of social care and the services to meet the needs of an ageing population now and into the future.

If we are serious about adequate resources, support for business development and improving the education and skills base in the sector then we need to know more about the social care sector, so welcome to the National Minimum Dataset for Social Care.

The success of the National Minimum Dataset for Social Care will depend on employers seeing the benefits of workforce information and being excited about engaging with the NMDS-SC Online.

NMDS-SC Helpdesk

The help desk staff are here to support employers to use NMDS-SC Online. We have two teams of dedicated staff who are able to assist and support you. For example, if you have technical problems in using NMDS-SC Online, forgotten your password, not sure about the information requested - then we are here to help, guide and support you.   We are a dedicated team of staff and can be contacted on Tel. 0845 873 0129 (local call rates apply).