Hertfordshire County Council

Hertfordshire County Council

Hertfordshire County Council commission Valuing Care to support their residential Fair Cost of Care Exercise. Valuing Care are supporting Hertfordshire County Council with their residential cost of care submission. They are providing a seamless service that encompasses the collection of provider data and template checking. 

The support includes:

    • Helping Providers to complete the templates including 1-1 telephone support
    • Managing the data collection process 
    • Checking provider templates for accuracy and consistency
    • Identification of fair cost of care rates from the survey results

All of the data collected will use the IESE tool for residential and nursing. This will ensure a consistent approach can be taken regionally and help providers concentrate on one reporting format. The survey collection started in June 2022 and is well on its way towards completion. The target date is the end of August 2022.

To read more about how Valuing Care supported Hertfordshire County Council, please click here 

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Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council

Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council

Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council Choose Valuing Care to help them better understand their residential Care Costs. 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:

These three areas are: 

    • 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.

Read more on how Valuing Care are supporting Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole Council here.

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Benchmark your FCOC Survey Results

Benchmark your FCOC Survey Results: Independent Third-Party Data for Local Authority Fair Cost of Care Surveys

With Market Sustainability reports due in October 2022 and pressure on the quality of survey data collected from providers mounting, it is important to have access to other sources of reliable cost information to help set robust and affordable rates.

Valuing Care is a prime source of market intelligence that can be used as part of a range of indicators to complete a fair and transparent Fair Cost of Care exercise

Valuing Care have used the collective intelligence from previous surveys to construct a range of cost models that calculate fair prices for services, reflecting local staffing costs and property values. This facilitates benchmarking of the local survey results, providing commissioners with increased confidence in what constitutes reasonable cost.

The company has been collecting cost data for over 10 years, providing a reliable and statistically significant data set that can be used as an independent benchmark.

Valuing Care has now made that benchmarking data available in a personalised software environment which can be accessed by local authority commissioners:

What you will receive within the software:

  • Local authority specific data tables that are representative of the local market
  • A detailed methodology explaining how the figures are arrived at
  • Access to a consultant to talk through the tables and explore scenarios

Please fill in the form below to submit your enquiry for a personalised software environment:

Configure your data environment here
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Southend City Council

Southend City Council

Southend City Council contacted Valuing Care to discuss project support capacity in completing their Fair Cost of Care requirements for the DHSC. For this exercise Valuing Care are supporting the survey collection exercise in both residential and domiciliary care.

The support includes: 

• Understanding the current cost structure through surveying the market  
• Managing the data collection process 

Read more on what Valuing Care are supporting Southend City Council with and what is planned here.

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Durham County Council

Durham County council

In early 2022, Durham County Council contacted Valuing Care to discuss project support capacity in completing their Fair Cost of Care requirements for the DHSC. All of the data collected used the LGA toolkit so that a common approach could be taken regionally on reporting and data recording. The project will leave Durham County Council with a verified statistical sample that has been benchmarked against Valuing Care’s own internal models.

It was agreed that domiciliary care support provided the best approach and Valuing Care were tasked with the following: 

• Understanding the current cost structure through surveying the market  
• Managing the data collection process 

Read more on what Valuing Care were tasked with and what is planned here.

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Central Bedfordshire Council

Central Bedfordshire Council

Over time, Central Bedfordshire have worked with Valuing Care on a number of care costs projects to provide them strategic oversight and transparency of costs in their care market.

In 2021 they again called on the company to work on 2 key projects:.

  • Cost of Care Review for Older People’s Residential and Nursing Care
  • Learning Disability Placement Review using Valuing Care’s Purchaser Software
 

Valuing Care conducting a cost review of care homes for older people within the Central Bedfordshire area. The Council were keen to separate out the additional cost resulting from the COVID pandemic. To facilitate this, Valuing Care requested two years of cost data from care home providers, with aim of calculating the financial impact on operating costs.

Read our full article here.

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Care Cap Brokerage Software

Care Cap Sector 18(3) Brokerage Software

Valuing Care’s Care Cap software takes data from Fair Cost of Care (FCOC) exercises and self-funder surveys to populate their workflow software. The software provides the tools required for local authority brokers to meet their section 18(3) requirements to support self-funders in arranging care.

Using Purchaser and Commissioner as the base, the software enables commissioners to:

  •  Load a Catalogue of registered private providers onto a workflow system
  • Set additional service elements prices for first party top-ups
  • Work with providers to get Best Value for self-funders with clear and transparent prices
  • Create bespoke printed contracts that can be used for self-funders in their arrangements with private providers

Benefits will include:

  •  Storing and updating of individual self-funder contracts providing outputs into a self-funders Care Cap account 
  • Benchmarking Against Valuing Care’s VFM rates and other nearby authorities
  • Breakdown of additional service costs likely to be required by self-funders including extra staffing, larger rooms and higher property costs
  • Provider template upload so that self-funder additional services can be bought and stored easily
  • Evidence Base Calculations of Fair Price for Care Fee Rates

The software is primarily constructed to be used by Local Authority brokers, meeting their obligations to support self-funders under the 18(3) requirements. However, it can be adapted to be used as the base for a self-service module that can be used directly by eligible self-funders.

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Health Tech Newspaper: The Cultural Change of using technology to purchase CHC placements

Health Tech Newspaper: The Cultural Change of using technology to purchase CHC placements

Are we ready?

Ray Hart, director at Valuing Care, discusses the cultural change of using technology to improve the purchasing process for CHC placements. He discusses the benefits, and explains why training is essential to its success. In most industries, for people in the workforce whose roles have purchasing responsibilities, there are processes in place, and access to data, to help decision making. This information is largely technology-based and helps the purchaser get the best price whilst still ensuring sustainable supply. 

In Continuing Healthcare (CHC), this isn’t always the case. Nurses and assessors for instance, commonly purchase CHC packages over the telephone or via face-to-face meetings without any pricing information to back those transactions. They are responsible for purchasing thousands of pounds worth of care, and yet often this task is completed without challenge to the prices providers quote, and without question on the breakdown of those costs.

Given the need for greater scrutiny of costs in healthcare, together with the urgency to reduce expenditure and achieve value for money, new technology is bringing much needed improvement. It is enabling assessors to delve deeper into the costs of care packages on a real-time basis, and challenge the rates quoted; bringing the purchasing process in line with other industries. There are some CCGs and CSUs leading the way here, adopting innovative technology to improve practices, yet overall progress across the board has been slow.

In reality, this is not a complex issue to tackle, it achievable for any department. So what is holding back progress? Whilst technology that enables a much smoother CHC purchasing process brings clear benefits for healthcare in terms of improving financial and operational efficiencies, it also creates challenges for these teams. Changing old working practices and habits, for many is a difficult hurdle to overcome, and the key here is training and engagement.

It is a huge cultural change for frontline workers; having to use technology for an element of their role which in the past has always been manual. Therefore it’s essential to engage the workforce in the developments and encourage commitment. Part of this is to communicate and train people on how using technology to complete this process will improve day-to-day working practices, and their own skill set, as well as highlighting the benefits it brings to healthcare as a whole.

In reality, this is not a complex issue to tackle, it achievable for any department. So what is holding back progress? Whilst technology that enables a much smoother CHC purchasing process brings clear benefits for healthcare in terms of improving financial and operational efficiencies, it also creates challenges for these teams. Changing old working practices and habits, for many is a difficult hurdle to overcome, and the key here is training and engagement.

It is a huge cultural change for frontline workers; having to use technology for an element of their role which in the past has always been manual. Therefore it’s essential to engage the workforce in the developments and encourage commitment. Part of this is to communicate and train people on how using technology to complete this process will improve day-to-day working practices, and their own skill set, as well as highlighting the benefits it brings to healthcare as a whole.

Adding a new area around the detailed components of cost is not easy but, rest assured, the providers selling packages of care know the underlying cost of their care and work this way. Without being similarly armed with that knowledge the advantage will always be on the supplier’s side.

However, implementation of this type of technology makes teams more price aware, and provides real-time information on costs. For people with purchasing duties, having a better understanding of costs and the price they should be paying for care, is fundamental. It facilitates better decision making and enables commissioners to secure value for money with providers. It also encourages people to think about other techniques, such as negotiating, to reduce costs; which in an ever financially challenged healthcare, is invaluable.

A further advantage of having a more effective purchasing processes in place is that it allows staff to reallocate their time to frontline duties, rather than being tangled up in admin-related work. This is a welcome step forward for most healthcare professionals.

As the number of CHC placements in the NHS continues to rise, with 62,000 people eligible for CHC funding in 2015/16, the potential for innovative technology in this area is enormous, it’s a significant breakthrough and is imperative to future sustainability. Technology helps overcome the limitations of the current approach to purchasing CHC placements, and with greater visibility and control over costs, commissioners will manage and purchase better, more cost-effective CHC placements.

23 November 2016
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Health Tech Newspaper: New CHC Online System

Health Tech Newspaper: New CHC Online System

New Continuing Healthcare online system enables more cost-effective purchasing

Valuing Care has launched a new online ‘Continuing Healthcare (CHC) Cost Toolkit’ to help commissioners manage and purchase better, more cost-effective CHC placements.

This online system enables CHC placements to be commissioned in the most cost effective manner. Based on Valuing Care’s cost models and data built up from 10 years of collecting care provider costs, the evidence-based approach of the ‘CHC Cost Toolkit’ includes: 

  • Cloud based infrastructure to enable nurses and commissioners to complete and access the same patient’ calculations
  • Web access to allow usage whilst undertaking negotiations with providers
  • A clear audit trail of purchasing calculations and decisions made
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  • Ability to tailor any national cost drivers to a more local level to deal with issues such as carer shortages
  • The ability to build up local data to benchmark and compare provider margins

With total spend on CHC across the country reported at £2.5 billion per annum, and as the number of CHC placements continue to rise, the ‘CHC Cost Toolkit’ provides a significant breakthrough for the market and enables commissioners to conduct informed negotiations and get their purchasing into better shape.

Ray Hart, managing director at Valuing Care said, “The cost of purchasing and managing CHC placements is a complex area that has been overlooked in recent years.  This has hampered the progress so desperately required to control costs; prices have continued to rise and yet costs have not been scrutinised. Our ‘CHC Cost Toolkit’ overcomes the inefficiencies that commissioners face with current systems and helps improve visibility, management and control of costs.”

By providing access to comprehensive market intelligence, the ‘CHC Costing Toolkit’ enables commissioners to gain a better understanding of costs, and be more price aware, which helps secure value for money care placements.  It also enables placements to be processed much quicker; reducing the amount of time commissioners spend on paperwork and enabling staff to reallocate their time. 

18th October, 2016
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Building Better Healthcare: Modernising CHC Purchasing

Building Better Healthcare: Modernising CHC Purchasing

From April 2015, councils will come under a duty to provide information and advice to people in their areas to enable them to plan for their care and support, including in relation to how they can benefit from independent financial advice.

As the NHS keeps having to find efficiencies, while also trying to identify new and better ways of working, many processes within healthcare have been examined to see what improvements can be made and what steps are needed to get them into better shape.

The cost of purchasing and managing Continuing Healthcare (CHC) placements is one of the few areas that has unfortunately been somewhat overlooked and overshadowed in favour of other procurement areas. And yet the purchasing process currently in place is long overdue an upgrade. As CCGs and CSUs continue to deal with ever-increasing CHC spend and care provider pressure, is now the time to update the systems used to purchase placements and move to an evidence-based approach using the latest on-line cost models?

Commissioning managers and nurses often voice the key functions needed in creating a system to manage and purchase better, and more-cost-effective, CHC placements. This includes:
 
  • A system that creates a standard cost model database to enable consistency across a CCG area
  • Cloud-based infrastructure to enable both nurses and commissioners to complete and access the same patient record
  • Market managing current vacancy rates and mapping supply to the needs of individuals.
  • Web access so that a system could be used while negotiations with the providers are being undertaken, either at the care home or in the office
  • A clear audit trail of purchasing calculations and decisions made
  • A workflow model that enables purchasing information to be collected once
  • The ability to tailor any national cost drivers to a more local level to deal with any issues such as carer shortages
  • The ability to build up a data set that can be used for reviewing contracts with providers and dealing with inflationary uplift

Most current systems that are not ‘home grown’ ones, record the outcomes of purchasing decisions made after they have been completed. These do not actually aid the purchasing decision, either through calculating the correct price or by helping find available vacancies.

To alleviate this problem, and improve the skill set and working practices, technology has been developed. Valuing Care, for instance, has turned its cost models and datasets into an online system.

Working with commissioners the company has built up standard models for care home purchasing that pull out the relevant data from the company’s national cost model to populate key cost fields. Applying technology in this way is a significant breakthrough for this area.

In addition, this national information can be tailored to a local cost model. This can either be populated before implementation, through a survey, or built up over time through data collected from actual negotiations.

The local cost data can be readily compared to the national database that has been created to ensure reasonableness. This will, over time, create an aggregate data set that will standardise the rates paid in a local area. The more data that is collected, the better the data set, and the better the decision-making process. The costs of CHC placements is a highly-complex area as individuals entitled to the service require different levels and types of care.

It has remained relatively unchallenged in some areas of the country, as has the way in which placements are purchased. In fact, the current approach to purchasing Continuing Healthcare placements is particularly paper-based or reliant on individual spreadsheets. As a result, this lack of investment is hampering the progress so desperately required to control costs.

Any new ways of working would need to reduce the amount of time spent on dealing with the paperwork of provider requests, and also create a solid basis to justify the prices providers are demanding for nursing places as costs continue to rise.

Automating the current process on its own would not be enough though. Decisions made to pay for placements need to be based on solid business intelligence that understands the underlying cost of care and forms the basis for smart negotiation with care providers. It is an ever-pressing issue due to the fact that the number of CHC placements to the NHS continues to rise, with 62,000 people eligible for Continuing Health Care funding in 2015/16.

The reasons for this increase are well known; primarily an ageing population with varying medical conditions requiring health intervention, and therefore funding for a variety of care packages. This has also been compounded by an increased awareness of CHC funding, and a number of legal test cases over the last 20 years.

With such a growing number CHC placements to process year on year, it is vital to move beyond this outdated, time-consuming, paper-based model of the past to a process that can cope with the ever-changing demands. Automating the process would lead to enormous improvements in staff efficiency. Heavily dependent on manpower, the current situation means that commissioners are tangled up completing excess paperwork and dealing with provider requests for uplifts.

A technology-based solution here could free up time, meaning that CHC placements could be processed through the system much quicker, leading to a better service. This allows more-effective commissioning as staff are able to reallocate their time to their primary duties. It would also allow commissioners to gain a better understanding of costs, and be clearer on the price they should be paying for all elements of the care including any additional services. Through being more price aware, this, in turn, helps commissioners secure value-for-money care placements and perhaps also consider other techniques to reduce costs.

For instance, commissioners are increasingly using negotiating techniques for individual packages, and report significant success in doing so.

As some patients require funding for a number of years, which can easily cost thousands of pounds per week with even a small saving on those costs soon adding up to a significant amount over the course of the placement, any improvement that reduces expenditure is crucial for future sustainability. 

Using technology throughout the purchasing process also improves visibility, and management and control of costs, and can really overcome the inefficiencies that commissioners face with the current system. Purchasing processes across different departments vary enormously in the health and social care sector, and it is time CHC processes were brought in line with the best. There is a better way to work here, and technology, coupled with business intelligence, can deliver the change so desperately needed.

22nd September 2016
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