National Care Forum Members' Briefing 9.1.23
Additional £250m Hospital Discharge & Ambulance Money
The government has now confirmed the speculation in the media over the weekend. The government will make available up to £250m to speed up hospital discharge to free up hospital beds. This is in addition to the £500m adult social care discharge fund:
Up to £200m will be given to the NHS to secure short-term care placements for people medically fit for discharge - the money will be given to the Integrated Care Boards to do this. These placements will fund a maximum of 4 weeks per person until the end of March. Discharged patients will be given the support they need from GPs, nurses and community-based clinicians £50m capital funding to upgrade and expand hospitals including new ambulance hubs and facilities for patients about to be discharged. This might be in the form of expanded hospital discharge lounges or new ambulance hubs where vehicles can manoeuvre more easily to avoid delays handing over patients. The creation of six national Discharge Frontrunners to explore new long-term initiatives to free-up hospital beds: Sussex Health and Care ICS The Northern Care Alliance Humber and North Yorkshire ICS One Croydon Alliance Leeds Health and Care Partnership Warwickshire PlaceThe NHS is continuing to roll out virtual wards across England as part of plans to deliver the equivalent of 7,000 more beds. CQC will reduce the number of inspections of hospitals. Inspections will be on a risk-based approach. There was very little on prevention in the Secretary of State's statement this afternoon - mainly about developing vaccines for cancer, virtual awards and community falls response. An Elective Recovery Taskforce has been convened. They will publish urgent and emergency care recovery plans in the coming weeks.
We will issue further details when we have it. The emphasis on this fund appears to be to get the money out quickly. You can read a transcript of the Secretary of State's parliamentary statement here.
The story that grabs the headline is the hospital, but the real news is the silent crisis going on in communities. The funding is welcome, but make no mistake, this is not job done. Social care matters to us all. Read our full response to see the 5 principles we believe the PM and his Ministers need to be taking if they truly want to resolve this crisis once and for all.Adult Social Care Winter Statement
The adult social care winter statement was published this morning. Apart from the list of the six national Discharge Frontrunners, the statement consists of a summary of announcements that have already been made. There is nothing new in the statement. I suspect it was written in November/December and has only been published today.
Energy Bill Relief Scheme Replacement - 'Energy Bills Discount Scheme'
The government has announced that the Energy Bills Relief Scheme will be replaced by the 'Energy Bills Discount Scheme' from 1 April 2023. This will last for 12 months and is seen as a transitional scheme. The amount of support seems to have been significantly reduced. Rather than being a cap on the wholesale unit price, it is now a maximum discount per wholesale unit above a certain threshold if our understanding is correct. The total money set aside for the scheme also appears to have been capped at £5.5bn - it's unclear what happens if that amount is breached.
Energy Bills Discount SchemeEnergy Bills Discount Scheme FactsheetThe new scheme will be available to everyone on a non-domestic contract including:
businesses voluntary sector organisations, such as charities public sector organisations who are:
on existing fixed price contracts that were agreed on or after 1 December 2021 signing new fixed price contracts on deemed/out of contract or shared variable tariffs on flexible purchase or similar contracts on variable 'Day Ahead Index' (DAI) tariffs (Northern Ireland scheme only)
Eligible non-domestic consumers will now receive a per-unit discount to their energy bills during the 12-month period from April 2023 to March 2024, subject to a maximum discount. The relative discount will be applied if wholesale prices are above a certain price threshold. For most non-domestic energy users in Great Britain and Northern Ireland these maximum discounts have been set at:electricity - £19.61 per megawatt hour (MWh) with a price threshold of £302 per MWh. gas - £6.97 per MWh with a price threshold of £107 per MWh
The discount is calculated as the difference between the wholesale price associated with an energy contract and the price threshold. The discount is phased in when the contract’s wholesale price exceeds the floor price, until the total discount per MWh reaches the maximum discount for that fuel.
We would be interested to know what impact this is likely to have on you as this scheme operates differently from the previous one, making it hard to make a direct comparison about the level of support being offered.
There is a second category for energy intensive industries. These are referred to as Energy and Trade Intensive Industries or ETIIs. Adult social care does not fall into this category.
Heat Networks Energy Bill Relief Schemes (EBRS) Pass-Through Notification Form
I have spoken to BEIS today regarding the Heat Networks Energy Bills Relief Scheme (EBRS) Pass-Through Notification form I circulated to some members last week. I am expecting information later this week which will hopefully make it clear who needs to complete the form.
Adult social care provider information provisions: data enforcement
The statutory guidance on the enforcement process for adult social care providers who do not comply with information requests has been published. We are working our way through this to understand the implications. We will hopefully have a briefing for members by the end of the week. A range of documents have also been published or updated atthis link.
ICS Learning Summit
We have worked with the CPA and NHSE to launch a new Learning Network on engaging social care providers as strategic partners in ICSs. The first learning summit will take place on 26th January. Please do attend! More information can be found here and your place can be reserved here.
NCF Members' Call
There is now a new members' call series. The members' call now takes place every two weeks. If you have not received a meeting invite, please email here