Yes to personalisation of care – but not at any price
Yes to personalisation of care – but not at any price
By Paul and Jennifer Roberts
www.caringforyourbusiness.co.uk
As the drive towards personalisation of care gathers momentum, new figures on people receiving personal budgets have been unveiled.
A total of 93,000 were receiving personal budgets in England by the end of March this year, according to a survey by the Local Government Association and Association of Directors of Social Services.
The figure is expected to soar to more than 200,000 by the same time next year – thanks, we are told, to the success of a number of pilot projects across the country.
The journey towards truly personalised care is going to be long and frequently rocky, particularly as many local authorities remain less than enthusiastic about the personalisation agenda.
But, as Care Services Minister Phil Hope says, the pace is quickening. And the Care and Support Green Paper – to be published in June – will bring a new sense of urgency to personalisation.
Mr Hope fervently believes that personalisation – championed by the Putting People First initiative – will be the oxygen to sustaining a vibrant care system into the future.
He’s right when he says the public need to see the value of local services and to feel ownership of them sooner rather than later.
Personalisation will be central to the long-awaited Green Paper that will help shape the future of care services well into the 21st century.
Mr Hope told the ADASS spring seminar that the proposals being worked on ‘will be hugely significant, not just for social care, but for politics as a whole. This is a moment when we stake out our case for the future.
‘That’s because the debate isn’t just about funding and demographic pressures – important though that is. The real debate is about the sort of society we want to build in the future. The sort of communities we want to live in.
‘The commitments we are prepared to make…politicians, council leaders, front line practitioners and the general public…what each of us are prepared to do to make it happen…capturing the minds of public about what we are doing.
‘This is the context. This is the consensus we need to build – a new “social contract” to sit alongside a new funding settlement for social care. This is exactly what our Green Paper proposals will explore’, he said.
Powerful words indeed.
One of the essential elements of making personalisation – and the Green Paper – a success will be public confidence in the concept and proposals.
Many in the care industry believe that local authorities should not be playing a key role in the development and operation of personalisation.
Care business leaders argue that the agenda for change should be placed firmly in the hands of private enterprise.
The personal budgets survey by the LGA and ADSS said councils were making good overall progress in personalising adult social care services but workforce development was ‘lagging behind’.
The vast majority of councils had established teams to address required changes, but the development of local area workforce strategies was ‘very limited’.
Apparently, local authorities considered that the commitment to the Putting People First initiative was ‘much weaker’ in the private sector than in the NHS and voluntary sector.
There may be a number of reasons for this. But let us consider two potential reasons for the less than enthusiastic response to personalisation.
The private sector has little confidence in the ability of local authorities to produce a cohesive, fair and cost-effective personalisation programme.
Many care firms have given a ‘wide berth’ to offering services to holders of personal/individual budgets – because the budgets have been set at such a low rate.
One leading provider in England told us recently that he would have faced operating at a loss if he provided services to people receiving personal budgets in his area.
‘I would have been expected to provide services for less than £10 an hour. I would have been mad to have taken it on,’ he said.
Our banks – and specifically their lending policies for the homecare sector – provide another major hurdle.
One of the largest lenders to the care industry told a conference in York recently that the winning of local authority contracts was often critical to securing bank funding.
That has been the case for some time. But what happens in three years time when local authority contracts are likely to be consigned to history?
How will lenders help out firms striding towards personalisation (with multiple contracts for care with individuals and not with local authorities)?
The answer is: we don’t know. The banks – happier that care businesses deal mainly with one large client – have not really given much thought to the issue.
So there’s the problem. The private sector wants to embrace personalisation in all its glory, but not in a way dictated by the Government and by local authority cutbacks.
And care businesses will need reassurances that the banks will support – through lending – the drive for personalisation.
Paul and Jennifer Roberts
www.caringforyourbusiness.co.uk
Roberts Consultants, specialists in developing care businesses
