Oxfordshire County Council : Social Care Provider Engagement

Each year the council reviews its fees and payments for providers of adult social care and support services.

We are now undertaking an annual review of prices paid to our contracted care providers and we want your views on the inputs that should be included in our decision making.

We will take the views expressed in this survey, alongside other considerations including sustainability and value for money when determine the final uplift and ceiling prices for 2024/25, which will start on 1 April 2024.

Introduction

The services that contracted providers deliver within Oxfordshire play an important role in helping to meet the needs of vulnerable adults and supporting the social care and health economies in the county. The Care Act (2014) places a duty on local authorities to promote the efficient and effective operation of the market for adult care and support as a whole and to ensure that there is sufficient capacity within the social care market to meet its current and future commissioning requirements.

We are now undertaking an annual review of prices paid to our contracted care providers and we want your views on the inputs that should be included in our decision making.

In setting our rate for 2024/25 we propose to look at the following inputs:

• Information from ADASS and LGA
• The announced increase in the National Living Wage
• The actual increase to wages that have occurred from previous annual uplifts
• Inflationary pressure indices
• The affordability of any proposal
• Our current ceiling rates and review processes 
• How we compare with our neighbouring authorities (both geographic and statistical neighbours)

In the Chancellor’s November 2023 autumn statement, no new additional funding was announced to cover inflationary uplifts to fees in Adult Social Care. Therefore, the council will need to consider how this is managed within its existing funding.  As you will see in the budget papers, like many councils, Oxfordshire County Council will need to make significant savings to ensure that they remain viable over the medium term. The vast majority of adult social care spend is with providers such as yourselves. It is therefore necessary for us to understand the opportunities for savings, efficiencies and cost reduction.

Have your say

The survey will remain open until  12^th January 2024

Once the survey has closed, we will analyse responses received together with other considerations including sustainability and value for money.

We will use this as the basis to determine the final uplift and ceiling prices for 2024/25 and we will write to all suppliers with the outcome.

If you have any specific questions or comments please use Question 10 which will be monitored throughout the process. Please an email address if you would like us to respond. Or you can email: carecontractspricereview@oxfordshire.gov.uk.

We want the people of Oxfordshire to live well in their community, remaining fit and healthy for as long as possible. This is the vision within the Oxfordshire Way. This means that we want people to receive the right level of support for their needs. We do this by improving access to information that informs on people's decision making to allow them to make the right choices, particularly when their needs are not being met by social care services. To make this really effective we need your help as care home managers. 

We want to know what information you routinely ask of people entering your home as a resident and also what information you give to residents who may be approaching the £23,250 threshold for ASC funding.