With the DHSC October deadline fast approaching, BCP Council recognised they needed to better understand their core provider costs in their local market.
Looking across their services they concentrated on three key areas:
- Older People’s Residential and Nursing Care
- Older People’s Domiciliary Care
- Learning Disabilities Residential, both in and out of the Local Authority area
Following recommendations from neighbouring councils they chose Valuing Care to support them across the projects. The company recommended taking a different approach in the two service areas to ensure the better match the particular cost structures of their core markets.
Older People’s Residential and Domiciliary Cost of Care Reviews
Valuing Care is conducting a full survey of all care homes for older people and domiciliary providers within the BCP Council area. The company is meeting with provider representatives to explain the process and answer any initial questions they had.
The company will use the LGA toolkit for home care and the IESE tool for residential. By doing so it is hoped that this will increase consistency and take-up.
Using the survey data, Valuing Care will use their skills and experience to create a report. This report will be used as the basis for setting fee rates for 2022/23 and will include:
- Aggregated Provider survey returns analysed for reasonableness and reported using Median rate analysis
- A comprehensive benchmarking exercise against Valuing Care’s independent model rates which have been built up through over 50 area wide surveys over the last decade
In addition, the company will collect self-funder pricing information which will provide the Council with a dataset and methodology ready for setting the metered Care Cap rate and First Party Top Ups. This comprehensive approach will be crucial for any scrutiny the new Care Cap rate will receive ready for its implementation in October 2023.
Creating a Sustainable Learning Disabilities Cost Model using Valuing Care’s Purchaser Software
Whilst not directly relating to the DHSC FCOC deadline, The Council wanted to create a sustainable framework for all their residential placements. This included one that could be used for Learning Disabilities for both new placements and reviewing existing placements.
In addition, with so many placements spread across the southwest they want to be sure that any model they used could be flexed to meet geographical variations. Based on this, they asked Valuing Care to collect information on all their current residential packages and load them onto their Purchaser software to create a BCP specific cost model.
By proceeding in this way BCP Council created a long lasting and maintainable record that they could easily update going forward.
Working in partnership with Valuing Care they are collecting:
- Underlying cost details of their targeted residential packages
- Staff rotas relating to each individual package
- Comparing this information to Valuing Care’s national and local models to provide a detailed breakdown of cost per package
- Storing all of this information into their own environment within the Purchaser software so all information can be captured once and reused over future years
- Using Valuing Care’s software and models to manage inflation requests from providers
The project will leave BCP Council with all cases recorded on a central system with detailed breakdown of their costs. Going forward commissioners will be able to:
- Continuously compare current costs to Valuing Care’s model costs
- Uplift cases by inflation in a targeted manner ensure value for money and sustainability
- Review cases with the greatest variance, either by Provider, profitability or sustainability
If you are interested in knowing more about the Cost of Care review project or Valuing Care’s Purchaser software please contact us.
For more information on Valuing Care’s benchmarking data link here
To view a video of the Purchaser software see below.