Oxfordshire County Council

Oxfordshire County Council

Logo for Oxfordshire County CouncilIn July 2020, Oxfordshire County Council instructed Valuing Care, to undertake a review of the home care market in Oxfordshire. The Council hoped to achieve greater understanding of the cost pressures faced by the sector (including the impact of COVID 19, Brexit, the National Living Wage etc.), and how this affects the supply of services. 

The objective of the review was to provide the Council with the necessary intelligence to develop a range of actions which ensure a sustainable market, able to deliver the required quality and capacity of service to meet the needs of the local population. The review required Valuing Care to undertake a detailed survey of Home Care Agencies (HCA) operating in the area, to assess the health of the market and to identify the range and usual cost of delivering services locally. The survey results were presented alongside Valuing Care’s independently constructed ‘value for money rates,’ to facilitate comparison against the company’s national intelligence of service costs.

Executive Summary Report

Case Studies

Worcestershire Council

Worcestershire Council

Logo for Worcestershire County CouncilWorcestershire County Council are undertaking a transformation programme which includes a review of the prices paid for generic home care services and older people residential services. The Council commissioned Valuing Care to provide independent specialist advice on what constitutes a fair price for services, to ensure that value for money was being achieved for taxpayers, but also that the market for services was sustainable. 

Home Care Services

The council had collated detailed information about the services they were purchasing and therefore did not require a full local survey: they requested that the company use their pricing model and national intelligence of operating costs, to calculate fair prices for services in Worcestershire. The price review provided the Council with a reliable indication of what it usually costs to provide care services in the area, which could be used to inform future rates for services; also, to assist the Council to develop a range of actions with the aim of ensuring a sustainable market, able to deliver the required quality and capacity of services to meet the needs of the local population.

Valuing Care completed a review of the prices currently paid by the Council and benchmarked the prices paid using its pricing model and a review of job advertisements in the local employment market to independently construct Value for Money (VFM) rates for the following types of care: 

• Standard Daytime Care (delivered between 7am-10pm)
• Waking Night Care (delivered between 10pm-7am)
• Sleep-in Services (delivered between 10pm-7am)
• Extra Care Services (1:1 hours

The VFM rates also reflected the average travel times and transport costs identified by VC in recent cost of care surveys undertaken for other County Councils (Cambridgeshire, Somerset, and Oxfordshire).

Case Studies

Kirklees Council and Kirklees CCG

Kirklees Council and Kirklees CCG

Logo for Kirklees CouncilNHS Greater Huddersfield, NHS North Kirklees CCGs and Kirklees Council work together to manage the Complex Disabilities Care Market using Valuing Care’s Purchaser Software. With co-terminus boundaries and a desire to manage a complex and costly market, commissioners across the three organisations have got together to find a better way to bring transparency and value for money across their commissioning spend.

The organisations evaluated the best options on the market and chose Valuing Care’s Purchaser software as their preferred way forward. By doing so they knew they could access tried and tested models of calculating prices whilst also ensuring that they embedded their knowledge and expertise into their respective organisations.

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.

Over the summer months the commissioners have worked with Valuing Care to further enhance the software to enable it to meet the scheduled reviews being undertaken and are now using the software for a programme of schedules reviews with providers.
If you are interested in knowing more about the project and Valuing Care’s Purchaser software please contact here.

Case Studies,
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