Care England Policy Insight (15.12.2023)

 

Changes to international recruitment, what now?

On 4 December, the Home Secretary, James Cleverly, announced a series of changes to the migration system aimed at reducing legal migration numbers to the UK, including changes to the Skilled Worker minimum salary threshold, modifications to the Shortage Occupation List and adjustments to dependant visas.
 
Care England’s Chief Executive, Professor Martin Green OBE, issued a reactionary comment recognising the contribution of international workers and the importance of acting swiftly to invest in the domestic workforce given the proposed changes.
 
Professor Martin Green OBE, Chief Executive of Care England says:
 
“For years, the Government opened doors for our sector to recruit overseas workers. The new measures make this route harder than before, and consequently, the sector must now adapt. We must look at our recruitment practice and develop new strategies to bring more domestic staff into a career in care. We must think creatively about what groups of people we can bring to the sector, and ensure they are the right people to provide support to those in receipt of care.”
 
Read the Care England press release in full here.

DLUHC: Local government finance policy statement 2024 to 2025

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities (DLUHC) set out the government’s intentions for the Local Government Finance Settlement (the ‘Settlement’) for 2024 to 2025. They discuss social care grants in addition to the core settlement, council tax referendum principles, remaining Settlement grants, and next steps.
 
Regarding the social care grants, they announced that funding, including of the 2022 Autumn Statement, additional grant resources for social care in 2024-25 will therefore be as follows:

  • an additional £692 million will be distributed to local authorities through the Social Care Grant for adult and children’s social care. This will bring the overall size of the Social Care Grant to £4,544 million. We will continue to equalise against the adult social care precept in the usual way.

  • an additional £200 million will be distributed in 2024 to 2025 through the Discharge Fund to support timely and safe discharge from hospital into the community by reducing the number of people delayed in hospital awaiting social care. This will bring the overall size of the local authority component of the Discharge Fund to £500 million.

  • the Discharge Fund will be in addition to the existing improved Better Care Fund, for which the quantum of £2,140 million and the distribution will remain the same as in 2023-24.

  • £1,050 million in 2024 to 2025 will be distributed for adult social care through the Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund (MSIF), which continues to include £162 million per year of Fair Cost of Care funding. It also includes £205 million MSIF - Workforce Funding, a 2-year fund announced in July 2023 which will be rolled into the existing MSIF. In total, the combined MSIF and MSIF Workforce Fund are worth £123 million more than in 2023 to 2024.

For 2023 to 2024, the government set an expectation that the additional funding made available to adult social care should lead to a substantial increase in planned adult social care spending, given the additional resources which were made available in that year. The Department of Health and Social Care will continue to monitor local authority budgeting and expenditure in 2024 to 2025, with an expectation that the following will be allocated to adult social care:

  • an appropriate share of the local authority’s additional Social Care Grant allocation for 2024 to 2025, in line with aggregate use of this funding in previous years

  • the local authority’s share of the 2024 to 2025 MSIF and Discharge Fund

  • the resources raised in 2024 to 2025 from the adult social care precept

  • we also expect local authorities to make use of the increase in income from unhypothecated sources. We expect spending on adult social care will increase by a necessary share of this income.

There will continue to be grant conditions placed on these grants regarding performance and use of funding to support improvement against these objectives.
Read the DLUHC announcement in full here.

Meeting the needs of autistic adults in mental health services

NHS England published guidance on how to improve the quality, accessibility and acceptability of care and support for autistic adults to meet their mental health needs, both in the community and in inpatient settings. It outlines 10 principles for implementation and provides practical examples of how these principles may be applied. This guidance is for integrated care boards, health organisations and wider system partners.
 
Read the NHS England guidance in full here.

 
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