National Care Forum Members' Briefing 21.11.22
Adult Social Care Discharge Fund - Grant Conditions
On Friday evening, grant conditions for the £500m Adult Social Care Discharge Fund were published. See also the letter from Minister for Care summarising the fund and grant conditions.
See the full summary of the grant conditions here.
The conditions are focused on commissioners – and indeed, funding is being given to them not directly to providers, it would appear to be largely to their discretion how the money is used for discharge purposes. There is a particular focus on prioritising home care.
The funding will be pooled into the Better Care Fund and divided as follows for the purposes of reducing delayed discharge:
£200m will be distributed to LAs, based on ASC relative needs formula
£300m will be distributed to Integrated Care Boards (ICBs), targeted at the areas experiencing the greatest discharge delays – see the guidance for an explanation on how this is worked out.
Funding will be provided in two tranches – 40% in December and 60% by end of January 2023. The Minister’s letter stresses that Integrated Care Partnerships should be a forum where the NHS, LAs and providers can discuss the use of the fund.
Please note that the Minister’s letter also states that there will an Adult Social Care Winter Statement in the coming weeks setting out what support is available to the sector this winter. There will also be an update to the Hospital Discharge and Community support guidance to reflect new legal requirements to cooperate and involve patients and carers in discharge planning.
At a brief glance, the fund can be used by health and LA commissioners to:
Enable more people to be discharged to an appropriate setting, including from mental health inpatient settings, with adequate and timely social care support as required.
Prioritise those approaches that are most effective in freeing up the maximum number of hospital beds, and reducing the bed days lost within the funding available, to the most appropriate setting from hospital, including from mental health inpatient settings. Discharge to Assess (D2A) and provision of homecare is recognised as an effective option for discharging more people in a safe and timely manner. Residential care to meet complex health and care needs may be more appropriate for people who have been waiting to be discharged for a long time.
Boost general adult social care workforce capacity, through staff recruitment and retention, where that will help reduce delayed discharges. This could include, but is not limited to, measures which: increase hours worked by existing workforce; improve retention of existing workforce; provide additional or redeployed capacity from current care workers; or support local recruitment initiatives. Local authorities will need to satisfy themselves that steps they take to boost workforce capacity align with their functions under the Care Act 2014, and each local authority will need to take into account any legal, employment law, equality, or tax considerations that may arise. Note that this condition is explicitly mentioned only in the grant conditions for LAs but not the guidance around ICBs - presumably, as budgets are pooled, there can be local agreement to use the ICB portion to support workforce when needed. We're working to understand this.
ICBs should ensure that support from the NHS for discharges into social care is available throughout the week, including at weekends
It's also worth noting that the funding cannot be used by the LA for inflationary pressures.
Please see the briefing above for the full breakdown.
Energy Business Relief Scheme (EBRS)
We are continuing our work to highlight the problems with the ERBS, the need for more support and the need for support post April-2023. Ofgem is now investigating reports of suppliers who are profiteering off the back of the EBRS at the expense of providers.
If you are seeing charges beyond the intention of the EBRS for your energy, we would ask that you raise these concerns and submit evidence to Ofgem via email to: NonDomesticRetailPolicy@ofgem.gov.uk by 23 November 2022 (please do copy me in as well if you are able). This might include excessive charges for deemed rates or standing/management rates, lack of viable offers made available by energy suppliers, excessive security deposits, inability to easily contact suppliers and unacceptable practices during debt and disconnection activities.
We would also encourage you to write to BEIS EBRSreview@beis.gov.uk and provide written evidence of the impact the increase in energy has had on your organisation and what the likely impact will be if ongoing support is not provided from April 2023.
Digital Social Care Record Minimum Operational Data Set Workshop – 28th November, 10:00-11:30
The NHS Transformation Directorate are developing the Digital Social Care Record (DSCR) Minimum Operational Data Set (MODS). This data set is a list of what information should be required in a Digital Social Care Record/Electronic Care Plan. The primary objective of the MODS is to ensure consistent baseline data is collected across the adult social care sector. The dataset should reflect regulatory requirements, facilitate increased capability for information sharing between health and adult social care systems and be the start of aligning the core information needed to deliver improved care. To ensure that it is usable in a real-world context, the project team are consulting with people delivering care services in England.
Adult Social Care Terminology Product Webinar – 29th November, 15:00-16:30
NHS Transformation Directorate have now published the Digital Social Care Data Catalogue alpha. This programme is focussed on developing a suite of adult social care terminology products that will enable local authorities, adult social care providers, and people and their families to share information quickly, easily and safely. The Catalogue will become a national "home" for adult social care data standards, where new and existing standards can be consolidated and published and where the community can discover and contribute to data best practice. Join this webinar to review the latest release of the Data Catalogue Tool. You can provide feedback on the tool, terminology and technical standards via the Feedback area. Register here
Disability history month and digital inclusion
16 November to 16 December is disability history month. Statistics released by Lloyds Bank in 2020 demonstrated that 42% of people with a disability had low or very low digital engagement and that 32% of those people did not have the digital skills and confidence to access information online. Staff working in support roles can play an active role to improve this, and there is advice and guidance available to help. If you are a registered manager of a care service and want support in making your digital environment accessible, there are resources available to help you. Find out more on the Digital Social Care website.
Completing the Data Security and Protection Toolkit – Webinar 28 December, 11-12
For those care providers who might use the Christmas period to catch up on the Data Security and Protection Toolkit, Better Security, Better Care is hosting a webinar on completing the DSPT on 28 December.