Report: LaingBuisson explore care funding sustainability in new analysis
Underlying sustainability of the social care market for older people remains the key issue facing the sector, and is the cornerstone of the analysis conducted in a new study from LaingBuisson.
The social care funding crisis has for a long time been widely debated. However, through ground-breaking profitability analysis and the innovative use of market dynamics modelling it is now possible in this study to predict the severe consequences for sustainability of the care home sector for older people, of current, accelerating adverse market trends. It is hoped that provision of this more robust evidence will pave the way for a full debate, between all interested parties.
The implications of the Care Act have been overlaid on these changing market conditions to examine the additional, potential adverse impact and risks arising from key provisions in the Act. This has focused, in particular, on the implications of what has become referred to as ‘market equalisation’, resulting from the possible erosion of the differential between the high fees self-funders pay for care and the insufficiently low fees councils are paying for equivalent care i.e. erosion of the significant cross-subsidies which exist in the care home market.
LaingBuisson’s ‘Care Market Sustainability’ report presents the key findings from evaluation of the main financial implications of the Care Act 2014, for local authorities, providers of residential care and nursing homes, older people needing care, as well as for sustainability of the market.
The approach adopted by LaingBuisson has been first to gain an incredibly detailed understanding of the care home market in each of 12 sample study areas, in terms of demand for and supply of residential and nursing care homes for older people. This work made full use of the LaingBuisson care home database of all facilities registered through the Care Quality Commission (CQC) – regularly updated for all changes, detailing all closures and new homes opening, with numbers of places involved, as well as providing the history of all changes, going back to 2005. This work was coupled with use of results from regular surveys conducted with providers of care homes, covering fee levels, the mix of funding (as between local authority placements, with and without top-up payments from third parties, self-funders and the NHS), occupancy levels, and other financial metrics.
The report costs £495 (for an individual copy).
