Cost of care survey 2022
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) asked all local authorities to survey care homes for older people and home care services in their area about the costs of providing their services.
Surveys of the costs of care homes for older people and visit-based home care services were carried out during summer 2022 to prepare for the planned (but subsequently deferred) implementation of reforms to adult social care funding in October 2023.
This was aligned to costs associated with care provision and proposed charging reforms where people could ask their local authority to commission the placement / package even where they were self-funding and also with the introduction of a “charging cap” would mean that more people would become eligible for financial assistance from their local authority.
After the survey was completed the results were submitted to the DHSC. it was announced that charging reforms would be deferred for two years, and there remains uncertainty at this time about how that will proceed.
At present local authorities usually only contract for people who receive financial support to fund their care under national regulations, the reforms would therefore have made local authorities responsible for many more people, who under the current system would contract with a care home privately.
Many care providers (care homes for older people and home care services) charge higher fees to private funders, so there would be a significant financial impact on the viability and sustainability of care providers to continue where income from this group of people could be reduced.
The DHSC wanted the survey information to come in on the overall cost of care provision to give an indication of the extent to which fees paid by local authorities might need to rise as this change took effect, and therefore to minimise the impact on care providers and the respective local markets of provision.
The following information on this from DHSC can be found as follows:
- Guidance on the cost of care survey (July 2022) – The "fair cost of care" survey can be found here.
- Impact assessment on charging reforms and impacts on costs of care provision - an Impact assessment about the charging reforms that Government was expecting to introduce in 2023 can be found here.
On 28 August 2022, Government published further policy guidance, which outlined amongst other areas, a recognition that the outcomes of the cost of care survey were broad, indicative, figures which would not reflect the costs of each individual provider in a local area and may oversimplify a complex picture of the care and support provided.
The DHSC expected local authorities to use their best judgement to reflect the actual costs, rather than desired fee rates.
The cost of care exercise was intended to inform, but not be a replacement for fee setting exercises carried out in each local area.
Submissions to the DHSC by North Tyneside Council
In line with the cost of care guidance, we have submitted the following documents to the DHSC:
The DHSC has advised local authorities that they should now publish their submissions by 1 February 2023.
North Tyneside's submissions can be found using the links below:-
- Survey information for both care homes for older people and home care provision (Annex A) can be found here
- Cost of care reports, for home care (Annex B - home care) can be found here
- Cost of care reports for residential care homes (Annex B - residential) can be found here
- Provisional Market Sustainability Plan, This provisional plan is now replaced with the final plan below. This is published in the interests of openness and transparency (Annex C) and can be found here
Our final Market Sustainability Plan has been submitted to the DHSC and can be viewed using the link below:-
Our position has been that whilst the surveys have provided useful information about the costs of services, the data is not sufficient to act directly as a guide to future fee levels.
Our understanding is that a similar conclusion was reached by many other local authorities both regionally and nationally.
If you have queries about any of these documents, please let us know by email to commissioning@northtyneside.gov.uk
