With so many underlying pressures in the care market, Dorset Council recognised that they needed to tackle the situation through a detailed review of all their commissioned residential costs.
Looking across the market they concentrated on two key areas:
- Older People’s Residential and Nursing Care
- Learning Disabilities Residential, both in and out of the County
As market leaders in the field, they chose Valuing Care to work on both projects, taking a different tact in the two areas to ensure they got the most value added from the work.
Creating a Sustainable Learning Disabilities Cost Model using Valuing Care’s Purchaser Software
The Council wanted to create a sustainable framework for all their residential placements, one that could be used 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 Dorset specific cost model.
By proceeding in this way Dorset 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 Dorset 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
Older People’s Residential and Nursing Cost of Care Review
Valuing Care conducting a full survey of all care homes for older people within the Dorset Council area. The company met with provider representatives to explain the process and answer any initial question they had.
Following this they have sent their tried and tested templates to all providers and are currently collecting provider returns. Survey requests were due at the middle of December 2021 with the Council expecting the final report by the end of January 2022.
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 information collected will provide the Council with a dataset and methodology ready for setting the metered Care Cap rate. This comprehensive approach will be crucial for any scrutiny the new Care Cap rate will receive ready for it’s implementation in October 2023.
If you are interested in knowing more about the Cost of Care review project or Valuing Care’s Purchaser software please contact us using the button below.
If you are interested in knowing more about the project or Valuing Care’s Purchaser software please contact here.