High inflation in the care market has put huge strain on Council budgets and provider costs. Although there has been no formal exercise to determine a fair cost of care for working age adults, costs are rising in a similar way. However, with only limited budgets, Councils need to decide which providers can access additional financial support and at what percentage.

Recognising Valuing Care’s expertise in this area, Hertfordshire CC engaged the company to analyse each provider’s request sent to the council. The caseload consisted of over 250 cases spread across 50 care homes and supported living settings.

Valuing Care used their Purchaser software to analyse each provider submission, sending recommendations to the Council on the level of uplifts deemed appropriate. Their work consisted of:

• Reviewing the templates received from providers for anomalies and discrepancies.
• Reviewing the provider’s Hertfordshire-level accounts, highlighting any significant information the Council should be aware of before making a decision on an award of sustainability funding.
• Analyse the proposed fee breakdown against Valuing Care’s benchmark rates for the specific client subset (LD Residential/Nursing, Supported Living, OP residential/Nursing)
• Creating a final report for each provider, highlighting the benchmark difference and calculating the total funding gap with a recommendation to HCC as to whether the application should be granted.

Hertfordshire County Council will have access to Valuing Care’s benchmark data for the purpose of this exercise. These benchmarks can be used to compare individual cost lines against the received claims.

This independent dataset, built up over the last 15 years, can give the local authority confidence that the provider’s reported costs are accurate in the wider market. It can also provide an anchor point to challenge any template figures that appear as outliers.

Using Valuing Care to support the provider uplift exercise in this way, Hertfordshire can be reassured that their market remains stable and the limited resources they do have are focussed on the providers in most need. 

If you are interested in knowing more about the project, the services Valuing Care provide or Valuing Care’s Purchaser software, please click here.