In 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.