'Country needs to value care profession'

Nicky Jacques, chief officer of Shropshire Partners in Care, was speaking after an investigation revealed that 95 UK councils have had home-care contracts cancelled by private companies struggling to deliver services on the funding offered.

Around 250 organisations employing more than 14,500 people are represented by Shropshire Partners in Care, with the home-care providers set to find out their Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin Council fee-rates for 2017/18 in the next few days.

Councils are facing ongoing restrictions on their own budgets, with an expected knock-on effect for care providers employed by the authorities.

Care providers are also facing their own cost increases with the living wage, increased pension contributions, and significant hikes in the regulations fees from the Care Quality Commission. Some firms will see an increase in the fee from £800 to £3,000.

Mrs Jacques: "I think there are very real challenges facing the home-care sector at the moment. There are very real challenges facing the care sector as a whole but particularly the home-care sector.

"Now is quite a delicate time of year, as we approach April we are negotiating fee rates for our members with Shropshire Council and Telford & Wrekin Council and they have some very real cost pressures facing them that come into effect on April 1."

Mrs Jacques said the rise in national living wage will also be an increase for companies that pay above the living wage as they seek to maintain the margin.

She said: "A lot will pay more than the living wage but an issue is how you recruit and retain staff. And to attract people you have to pay differential rate above the living wage to make it attractive."

Mrs Jacques warned that care providers need councils to take account of inflation in order for them to continue to run effectively.

She said: "We do not know what the fee rates will be next year but our concern is if in setting fee rates for the next year local authorities do not recognise inflationary rates that home-care providers are facing then they are effectively facing a fee cut.

"I think it is very much recognised that social care is a huge proportion of both local authorities' budgets and they do face deficits with that. The two billion pounds awarded in the budget was welcomed but it is not enough."

Councillor Izzi Seccombe from the Local Government Association - which represents councils across England and Wales has warned that the care system faces collapse without a long-term funding solution,

She said: "We have warned that the combination of the historic under-funding of adult social care, and the significant pressures of an ageing population and the national living wage, are pushing the care provider market to the brink of collapse.

"These figures show the enormous strain providers are under, and emphasises the urgent need for a long-term, sustainable solution to the social care funding crisis."

Mrs Jacques said that the issues of providing funding for home-care would need addressing as more people require assistance in their own homes.

She said: "There is a very real challenge because local authorities see that more people will be cared for in their own homes, the time when people move into care homes will be much later.

"They will be managed with much more complex needs than they are used to. That is the real challenge because the level of need of people being managed at home is increasing."

Mrs Jacques added that the country needs to change its attitude towards the profession of social care, and place more value on the work of carers.

She said: "I think it does. What we see is social care in peoples own homes is not well regarded and at the budget the chancellor announced a green paper looking at transforming social care going forward and we very much look forward to that."