Issue - meetings

The Board considered a report of the Strategic Director, People, on the proposed annual uplift for domiciliary and care home providers within Halton for 2018/19.

The Board was advised that the care sector was critical to the sustainability of the health and social care economy and ensured that the Council was able to support adults to live as independently as possible in their own homes.

It was reported that one of the main challenges for the sector had been the introduction of a new mandatory National Living Wage (NLW) for workers aged 25 and above from 1 April 2016. In addition, changes in case law required providers to pay the NLW for each hour worked in an overnight “sleep-in”. It was reported that the Council had engaged with all care home, supported housing and domiciliary care providers that would be working in the Borough in 2018/19 in respect of inflationary increases. The report set out details of the proposed increases for each sector for Members’ consideration.

Reason(s) for Decision

The Adult Social Care budget 2018/19 for Residential and Nursing Care was set on the assumption of an inflationary increase of 3.5%. Any increase over 3.5% would exert financial pressure on the budget.

Alternative Options Considered and Rejected

The social care market had been recognised nationally as being extremely fragile and the Council had a statutory duty to maintain market stability and sufficiency under the Care Act 2014.  Not providing an inflationary uplift at a time when providers must pay the National Living Wage would destabilise the market.  In addition, people were living longer with very complex health care needs and Halton needed a robust and skilled workforce to continue to provide high quality care for some of the most vulnerable people in the community.

The recommended increase was based on an analysis of the cost pressures on providers and included an element of flexibility to ensure that market sustainability and quality was maintained whilst being affordable to Halton.

An increase less than the recommendations could undermine market stability as providers would not be able to meet their mandatory responsibility to pay staff the National Living Wage, resulting in services becoming financially unviable.  This would impact negatively on the local health and social care system, with a potential knock on effect for supporting timely discharge from hospital.

An increase of more than the recommendations would impact negatively on the Council’s finances and would be unaffordable.  The Council would have less money available to meet its statutory duties and continue to support vulnerable adults.

Implementation Date

1 April 2018.

RESOLVED: That the Board

1)    note the contents of the report; and

2)    give approval to actively enter into discussions with Care Providers, with a view to offer a 3.5% uplift for 2018/19.